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HISTORIC CATSKILL 



THE CATSKILL AND THE KAATERSKILL 

nPHE birthplace of the C'atskill is on a mountain-top, its cradle a 
* humble spring in a swamp called by the Dutch "Eckerson's 
Vly." A discontented, fretful infant, it wanders down the mountain- 
side, and fed by other little streams becomes stronger and broader, 
until man-size it strikes out into the world, furrowing its way 
through gravelly red soil, leaping over rocks or wandering through 
the sandy stretches of the valley, receiving the strength of many 
tributaries until with a broad sweep of quiet waters it finishes a 
forty-mile journey and is lost in the Hudson. 

Its early history is that of the silence of the wilderness — an 
overabundance of fish in its waters, and game under the giant trees 
and tangled underbrush along its banks. Then the wandering red 
man penetrated its solitude, pitching his wigwam within sight of 
the broader waters of the Hudson, and greeting the Half Moon, on 
her voyage of discovery, with gifts of corn and squashes. They chose 
the lowlands for their maize-fields, while their villages occupied the 
foothills, and their trails followed the "Katsklll to its source and 
down the Schoharie to the Mohawk.'' 




VIEW FROM WINI>II.\M .MOrNT.4IN, MOHIC.VN Tl«.\ll, 

For many, many moons the Indians occupied the lands at Hop- 
o'-Nose, Mawignack and Wachachkeek. They felled the forest trees 
by burning, and their squaws with papoose upon their backs were 
the first farmerettes of this region. At "Castle Height" and on 
Potic Mountain were their forts; their council fire at Schodac. They 
were peaceful Indians when the white man found his way to the 
new country, and the traders visited their villages, tempting them 
with beads and trinkets in exchange for the skins of wild animals. 
and carried the news of their rich lands to the Dutch and P'nglish 
pioneers along the Hudson and the Mohawk. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



In 1638 a Dutch vessel from Holland, the Arms of Norway, 
anchored at New Amsterdam. Among the passengers, weary and 
worn from a three months' voyage across the ocean, was Teunlsse 
Dircksen (Van Vechten). his wife, child, and two servants, bound 
for Fort Orange. A few days later they sailed up the Hudson. 
Coming from the land of dykes, windmills and lowlands, followed by 
the monotony of an ocean voyage, they looked with wonder upon the 
wooded shores of the great river, its rocky palisades, steep mountain 
sides dropping to the water's edge; and as they ascended the stream 
an irregular line of blue in the distance, which the captain told them 
was what the Indians called Onteoras, "the mountains of the sky," 
home of witches who brewed the storms that sometimes swept the 
valley. Along the shores of the river was wonderful vegetation and 
forest growth, untouched by the axe, and on its waters no sign of 
life excepting now and then an Indian in his canoe. 

"There is the mouth of a stream called the Katskill after our 
poet .Jacob Kats of the homeland, he that was Keeper of the Great 
Seal. " said the captain one day as they sailed by. "Dost see the 
homes of the heathen and their crops of maize? These flat lands 
would bring much profit to a white man. The traders say there be 
a plenty of rich land along the banks of this stream, but all is yet a 
wilderness. Perchance some day it will be inhabited, for these be 
peaceful Indians and hold their possessions of little value. You 
might well buy them for the boy Dirck with a few jack-knives and 
blankets." 

"We will first see what is in store for us at Fort Orange," said 
Teunlsse Dircksen, "but what you say tempts me much." 

A week and more they traveled this inland waterway before 
they saw the Fort. There were no telephones or telegraphs to herald 
their coming to the brother Cornelius who had preceded them to the 
new country, but no doubt they were greeted joyfully, for it was a 
great event to welcome relatives, friends or even strangers and hear 
news from the home land. 

Teunlsse Cornelius (Van Vechten) had preceded his brother by 
a year and established himself on a farm at Greenbush. and it was 
not without forethought and inquiry that his brother had decided 
to follow his example. Teunlsse Dirckse was not one to be easily 
discouraged by difficulties and dangers by sea or land, provided 
material benefit might result, for his was an inheritance of courage 
and steadfastness of purpose. His grandfather had been one of 
those who withstood the siege of Leyden. and he came of a race 
prominent in Roman church records as far back as 1200. Since the 
birth of the child Dirck he had a secret desire for landed possessions, 
such as could not be found in Holland, but he wanted reasonable 
assurance that these things would be his in the new country if he 
made the venture. When a letter came from his brother telling of 
his safe arrival and of certain lands that could be purchased, the 
great fertility of the soil, the wonderful forests and the future com- 
mercial advantages of the new land, he sat for some time smoking his 
long-stemmed pipe before he spoke his thought to his young vrouw. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



"It would be a good thing tor the lad," he said at last, "if we 
were to set sail for the new country. It takes but a few guilders to 
buy much land there, and the judgment of Cornelius, though he be 
but young in years, can be trusted. What think ye, mine vrouw?" 

"There be wild men and dangers of all kinds; the voyage would 
be one of great peril for the child. Should we risk it for him?" 

"The wild men give little trouble, I am told, if treated fairly, 
and there be plenty of stone for secure dwellings, with masons and 
carpenters who went with the first shiploads, to do the work. We 
have guilders enough to keep us in comfort if so be the plan fails. 
Dirck is a sturdy youngster and will take no harm. If it be God's 
will that the ship be lost on the way. then will we all perish, and 
none left to mourn another." 

"Your mind seems already well made up, but we had best think 
on it for a time and seek divine guidance before you speak to the 
ship's captain. I have little desire for the new country and would 
be sure all is well before making the venture." 

Three months later they set sail for America. 

Teunisse Dircksen settled at Greenbush and in due time two 
sons and a daughter were added to the family. The little Dirck who 
crossed the ocean with his parents proved worthy of their foresight 
and sacrifice, became a man of reputation in the colony, married 
•Tanetjie Vrelant of Communipaw, settled at Rensselaerwyck, and 
with a full dozen of children in 1690 began looking for a tract of 
land that should furnish an estate to descend from son to son. The 
affairs of the province had changed during the years, and New 
Amsterdam had become New York, and Fort Orange Albany, but the 
Dutch clung to the old names. 

Often Dirck's father had spoken of the lands along the Katskill 
which the captain had told him about, and hearing from his niece 
Neeltje (the daughter of his only sister Peterjie), who had married 
Marte Gerritse Van Bergen, Commissary of the Fort, that her husband 
and Silvester Salisbury (the Fort's Commander) had purchased much 
land along that stream, Dirck determined to secure some portion for 
himself. He found the land at the mouth of the Katskill had been 
purchased of the Indians by Clavis Uylen Spiegel, and the tracts that 
pleased him most had also been sold by the owner, a squaw named 
Pewasck, to an officer of the Patroon who had been arrested by 
Stuyvesant foi- adding to the Patroon's ^Possessions, and his claim 
declared void, but one of the lessees, Jan .lansen Van Bremen by 
name, was allowed to remain on the land. He had built a house in 
which a "room with a fireplace was to be reserved for the Director 
of Rensselaerwyck." He also agreed as early as 1651 to "hold 
services on every Lord's day or Holy day conducted according to 
the customs of the Reformed church, to sing one or more Psalms 
after prayers, and to live in peace with his Christian neighbors and 
the Indians." .\fter a time he received a patent for the land, later 
selling it to Stephanus Van Courtland, who was persuaded by Dirck 
'J'eunis Van Vechten to part with it for "400 guilders in beaver 
skins, and '27a] guilders in Patroon's money," or about $250. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



Down from Albany in 1678 came Marte Garretse Van Bergen. 
Commissary General at the Fort, looking for bargains in lands, and 
with him came Silvester Salisbury, Englishman. "Commander and 
man of note."" They had come a weary way through the wilderness 
on horseback in their search, and now leaving the trail drew rein on 
a rock overlooking the valley which Marte Garretse had before 
visited with a trader. 

"These be fine lowlands, " said he, as they gazed on the maize- 
fields of the red men. "We would do well if these savages could be 
induced to part with their possessions. What think ye. Salisbury?'" 

"I would be well content if they could be secured.'" was the 
reply. 

"Their wigwams are on yonder hillside; let us go hither," said 
Van Bergen. 

To the Englishman is credited excess of guilders, and to the 
Dutchman agricultural and commercial ability, also a certain amount 
of thrift and foresight which enabled him to keep what guilders 
he had. 

"You furnish the guilders,"" he had said to Salisbury, "and I 
will barter with the red men, survey the land and obtain the grant, 
receiving as compensation according to custom a portion of the land."' 

"Well and good, mynher. You barter with the Indians, secure 
the title, and I will furnish the guilders, provided they be not too 
many. 'Tis rich land and I would like well to secure it for my son." 

Van Bergen was skilled in bargaining. His scant knowledge of 
the Indian tongue seemed a hindrance, but he pieced it out with 
gestures, and after long and tedious council with the chiefs of the 
tribe he displayed his knitted stockings on legs of fair proportion, 
and added ten pair to the tail of his offer. This proved too tempting 
to be resisted, and he obtained an option as it were on the land for 
four miles around Wachachkeek "for 300 guilders, 100 ells of woolen 
cloth, 10 blankets, 10 axes, 10 fusees and 10 pair of stockings." 
35,500 acres were included in the purchase. 

Shortly after this bargain had been made, six Indian chiefs and 
their Sachem, Mahak-Ninimaw, journeyed to Albany, and "at the 
Stadt-huys formally parted with their possessions, whose boundaries 
were not legally fixed until some years later." 

A year or so after the purchase of the lands Salisbury died. 
Silvester Salisbury was "a descendant of princes," an officer in 
command of British forces sent to capture New Amsterdam, N. Y. 
He married, like many a British soldier, a fair lady of Dutch birth, 
"Elizabeth Beek, a daughter of a master carpenter." After the 
capture of New Amsterdam, Salisbury was given command of Fort 
Orange, changing its name to Fort Albany in honor of the Duke of 
Albany, afterward James II. He became High Sheriff of Rensselaer- 
wyck and Justice of the Peace of Albany. 

About 1675 Salisbury was sent on a mission to England to 
persuade the king to cede Connecticut to New York as being essential 
to its future greatness. "He was well known at Court" and would 
be likely to be given a hearing. When Salisbury returned to New 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^OLD KATSKILL 



York he brought with him furniture, silverware, pictures and various 
other things which he prized, among them "two swords or rapiers;" 
on one (a gentleman's) was engraved the date 1616, and on another 
1544, "given at knighthood, supposedly by Henry VIII at the siege 
of Bologne," bearing the letters S. A. C. H. G. V. M. "In English 
law S. A. C. meant the privilege given by the king to the lord of a 
manor for holding court and imposing' fines;. H means Henry, and 
(}. V. M. given for valor military." There was also a claymore 
picked up at Flodden Field, a coat of arms carved in hard wood, 
,ind a life-size oil painting of Anne Boleyn. All are still in pos- 
session of descendants. 

The portrait of Anne Boleyn holds you with a fascination you 
I annot understand, and the longer you study it the harder it is to 
pass from its presence. Seen in the home of the Misses Salisbury at 
Catskill, where they have lived since their father left the old home, 
surrounded by other portraits of great interest and valuable family 
treasures that charm the historian and have an appeal for those 
previously uninterested, added to this the courtesy of the hostess. 
Anne Boleyn and her setting is a memory to be cherished. The 
portrait is supposed to have been painted by Hans Holbein, the 
court painter at the time of Henry VIII, and there seems no good 
reason to doubt that the great artist executed it. The wonderful 
browns that are his, the sixth finger so cleverly hidden, and "all 
the circumstances connected with it as well as the judgment of a 
noted artist to whose hands it was committed for cleaning, are 
convincing facts." 

Anne Boleyn's grandmother presided at the court of Henry VIII, 
and on the death of the queen "was appointed state governess to 
Elizabeth" and given the "home, furniture and silverware he had 
bestowed upon Anne Boleyn." Robert Salisbury, a brother of Henry 
and ancestor of Silvester, came from his castle in Wales to a "great 
tournament given by Sir Rhys with horses from his own stable 
caparisoned for the contest." Henry married the daughter of Sir 
Rhys and Catharine, daughter of the Duchess of Norfolk, aunt of 
Queen Elizabeth, which furnishes circumstantial evidence of weight. 

There is an old story of William Salisbury, the grandson of 
General Salisbury who was "born in the mansion of 1705 but who 
lived at the time in the house built by his father in 17:30 or '?,1," 
which has only a foundation of truth. This story tells of murder, 
conviction and remorse and a suspended sentence, Salisbury wearing 
a silken cord about his neck as a reminder of his ultimate fate. 

The true story is as follows: Salisbury "had a bound girl, Anna 
Dorothea Swartz. who persisted in visiting at the house of a family 
of bad reputation." and in those days the master of a bound boy or 
girl was given absolute control over them and was responsible for 
their conduct. This family lived at the foot or second turn of what 
is now known as Phelan's Hill, on lands of Newkirk (now Schaefer's) 
and "on this occasion refused to return" with her master. Mr. 
Salisbury tied one end of the rope around the girl's waist and the 
other to his own — a foolish but not necessarily wicked act. for he 



6 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



was in as much danger as she, and nearly shared her fate. As the 
horse is valued at three pounds in the indictment, it was very likely 
an old one. The horse, however, became frightened, Salisbury was 
dragged from his back and the girl was killed. Salisbury immedi- 
ately gave himself up and was indicted for murder, but the case 
never came to trial. "His lawyer was James Barker of Cairo." 
Opposite the entrance to the Newkirk farm, before the state road 
was built, was a large boulder known as "spook rock," and here is 
where the girl is supposed to have met death, and here at midnight 
on the anniversaries of her death a huge gray horse with rider and 
girl appear to superstitious townfolks. 

"I have rare news for you, Caatje," said Teunis Van Vechten of 
the mill to his wife one day in 1705. "I met Francis Salisbury on the 
highway and had speech with him. Soon we will have neighbors." 

"That be rare news indeed. I remember his wife well, she that 
was Maria Van Gaasbeck. She was a fine lass when she married 
Salisbury. Dost remember the merry-making at the wedding?" 

"Well I do, and another lass as fine." 

"Hath he a family?" 

"At this time he has but two lads. The first-born died while 
yet an infant, and the fourth but a short time since." 




S.M.ISHl KV OK V.\N' DKT.SKN HOlJlSE, 1705 

It was a break in the monotony of pioneer life, this building of 
the gray stone mansion in the wilderness. The busy workers cutting 
out the stone from the sandstone ridges along Dircks Kilitje, the 
stout oxen drawing them over the rough roads, the difficulties of 
obtaining material so far from any town and in a new country, 
furnished food for conversation for many a day. The walls went 
steadily up day by day while the skilled and efficient Dutch woi'kmen 
who had come over from Holland, the builders of dykes and the 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



conquerors of the sea, were undismayed at the bigness of the task. 
For over two centuries it has stood a monument to skilled and 
faithful workmanship. Could its small-paned windows be restored 
it would look much the same to-day as when Francis Salisbury, his 
family and slaves took possession, and the fires were lighted in the 
big fireplaces framed with Dutch tile, the flames lighting up the 
beams of yellow pine, reflected in the polished mahogany furniture, 
and casting shadows across the deep-seated windows. 

For a time Van Bergen managed both estates, obtained the 
patent and settled boundary lines which were not legally established 
until 1767. "After much litigation they were fixed at four miles in 
all directions, extending north beyond Cairo, south to the Imboght, 
east to the Hudson and west to the Kiskatom Flats, but much of the 
land was never claimed." Previous to their purchase of the Katskill 
patent they had several smaller portions of land throughout the state. 

Andreas and Hendrick Whitbeck leased a portion of Salisbury's 
lands for ten years, and instead of rent "agreed to build a barn 22 ^^ 
feet in length, and as broad as the barn Marte Garritse (Van Bergen) 
had built; to erect a dwelling 22 1/^ feet square with shingled roof 
and cellar, and to plant an orchard of 200 fruit trees." These last 
Van Dyke brought down from Albany. 

Francis the son of Silvester lived at Albany and Kingston, 
married Maria Van Gaasbeck of the latter place, and enrolled as a 
private soldier in 1689. 

In the meantime (1680) Van Bergen built a small house and a 
smokehouse of stone, with a wooden barn fifty feet square, its beams 
cut from the primeval forest trees and hewn in pits by skilled 
hands. "Send messengers to the Landing, the Imboght and Esopus, 
that our kinsmen and neighbors may help us in the raising. It be 
a great undertaking," thus said Van Bergen when all was ready. 
The yeomen from these settlements responded to the call, the heavy 
frame was put iip and the huge beams fastened in place by stout 
wooden pins. 

Marte Gerretse Van Bergen was a nephew of Kiliaan Van 
Rensselaer of Amsterdam, and had come to this country in 1640. 
"For many years he was Commissary General of Fort Orange, held 
the office of justice of the peace, was a member of the governor's 
council and captain of a company of foot." He was interested in 
his adopted country to such an extent that he "gave large sums for 
her defense" and was said to be "the most liberal man, not except- 
ing Van Rensselaer and Livingston, in the support of Godfrey 
Dellius the Dutch dominie of Albany." His first wife having died, 
he married in 1686 Neeltje Van Yverson, the niece of Dirck Teunis 
Van Vechten. Ten years later, the year their youngest child was 
born, "there was an attack by Canadian Indians upon his bouwerij on 
the west side of the Hudson where he was living. All was confusion, 
the hasty seizing of firearms, barricading of doors and gathering the 
women and children together. The purpose of the Indians was to 
carry away Van Bergen as a prisoner, but in resisting he was killed." 

Van Bergen was rich in lands, not only at Katskill but at 



8 



mSTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



Albany and Coxsackie, and along the Mohawk. His widow was not 
long in providing her five small children with another father, and 
the lands at Katskill continued to be leased and no division made 
until 1721. 

It was in the fall of 17 28 that the neighbors rejoiced to learn 
that Garret Van Bergen of Albany, oldest son of the pioneer, had 
given orders that a cellar be dug for a new house east of the small 
stone one of 1680 which his father had built for his tenants, and 
Francis Salisbury was planning two houses for his sons along the 
highway. 

"The news pleases me greatly," said DuBois of the Landing, 
"for perchance now a church can be built and God's Word be 
preached to the people in a proper manner, and our lads and lasses 
receive instruction in the catechism and the Holy Writ such as we 
cannot give them." 

The younger ones were also pleased at the news, for the Van 
Bergens had large families, and there would likely be much merry- 
making and exchange of visits when the new houses were finished 
and the families settled there. 



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VKDDKK I'.AKIVIHOl si;, Bl ll.T I7:l!t 

Garret Van Bergen completed his house .July 4. ]72y. It was 
of brick, 5 feet long, with red-tiled roof. On the first Hoor were 
two large rooms with leaden-sashed windows, and a wide hall with 
heavy double doors at either end. The wine, cidei', and milk cellars 
were beneath, and above was a half-story. A.t the side of the big 
fireplace in the living room was a door which opened into a passage- 
way leading to the old building of I'lSO, now to be used as "a 
kitchen and place for slaves." 

To the new house came Garret (son of Gerretse), his wife and 
seven children. Situated high above the plain, its windows looked 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



out upon the "Quackjack" or Christians' corn land, once the maize- 
field of the Indian; beyond it was Potic Mountain covered with oaks 
and evergreens, here and there a white birch gleaming through. "'A 
path or rude wagon track" ran in an unbroken line to the ford 
across the Katskill. To the east could be seen the Kaleberg, and 
beyond the plain on all sides was a dense forest, the only sign of 
habitation the dwelling of the Salisburys, the log cabin of Jan 
Bronck near the fording place, and the stone house of the younger 
Van Bergen, built the same year, across the field. 

From the "stoep" with its benches on either side, the double 
doors with ponderous knocker opened into the hall through which 
you could pass to another and sunnier "stoep" and to the bleach- 
yard, where many yards of new-spun linen were likely to be found 
bleaching in the sun. A stairway led to the dimly lighted room 
above where the older children slept and where the loom was kept 
busy on warm days. Sometimes on cold winter nights a slave would 
run the brass warming pan "filled with redhot embers" between the 
homespun woolen sheets, and often the "wolves would come down 
from the Potic and howl around the covered sheep-pens, the distant 
cry of the wildcat or the panther could be heard," and the more 
timid of the children would pull the coverlet over their ears to shut 
out the mournful sound. 

The living room always had an air of peace and comfort. The 
cheery back-log lighted up the blue tile surrounding the fireplace, 
while grandmother sat in the warmest corner with her knitting, with 
Caesar the dog at her feet, crooning the children's favorite ditty, 
"Trip a trop a troonjies." to the little one in the hooded cradle. In 
one corner of the room was a "kos " with its pewter dishes and choice 
bits of china, and on one side of the chimney was a high-poster with 
a trundle bed tucked beneath and hidden by the valance, while the 
steady hum of the spinning wheel could be heard as Deborah Van 
Bergen passed backward and forward spinning the linen threads for 
her bridal chest. The room on the east side of the hall was opened 
only on great occasions, such as a wedding or a funeral, and con- 
tained the "family treasures of mahogany and brass brought from 
the old country." 

In the kitchen fireplace hung the iron crane, supporting a huge 
black kettle, while from the beams overhead "hung various herbs 
and simples." On winter evenings dusky forms gathered about the 
fire and the children would often steal away to listen to their blood- 
curdling tales of ghosts and Indians, in which they took strange 
delight. The blacks themselves would roll their eyes toward the 
darker corners of the i-ooni as if in momentary terror of being 
scalped, or, what was still worse, seized by some departed spirit 
said "to disport itself along the highway after nightfall." The 
sudden snapping of the wood or the howling of the wind outside was 
sufficient to turn their faces to an ashen hue, then old .Ian would 
seize his fiddle and play some rollicking tune, and. like children. 
their fears were forgotten. 

On Sundays the childrHn would gather around the fire while 



10 fflSTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 

one of their elders would explain the stories of Jonah and the whale, 
the good Samaritan, or some other Bible story pictured by the tile; 
then they would sing psalms and repeat the catechism. In summer 
they followed the men as they tilled the fields or harvested the crops, 
chased the squirrels or waded in the "Kelder Kiltje," the older ones 
doing their full share of work. In winter they learned to read and 
write, moulded leaden bullets, twisted flax into ropes, or spent hours 
skating on the ponds or coasting down the long hill within sound 
of the wood-choppers. "In those days there was little fear of 
Indians. Sometimes on their way from the hills they would stop 
and beg for rum. They were a lazy, shiftless set; cowardly, 
ferocious." It was not until Revolutionary days that the "teekum 
yur" was lighted on the hills to tell that the Iroquois were abroad; 
then the panic-stricken women and children fled to the stronger 
houses for better means of defense. 

In the autumn all hands were kept busy. There was corn to 
be husked, and grain to be threshed and taken to the mill to be 
ground into Indian meal, coarse flour and feed for the stock, every 
large estate having its own grist-mill on some convenient stream. 
There was "killing time, with great quantities of head-cheese and 
sausage to be chopped; pork, corned beef, hams, bacon and fish to 
be packed in great hogsheads in the cellar; vegetables to be stored 
away, and later the hanging of hams and bacon in the stone smoke- 
house with its one barred window and heavy door, where a smoke 
must be almost constantly kept up for their proper curing. Oc- 
casionally there would be a journey to the "Het Strand" or Landing 
over "rough forest roads with the produce of the farm to the sloops 
on the Hudson." 

It was only a few furlongs east of Garret Van Bergen's house 
that his brother Martin built a smaller one of stone that same year 
(1729), and with it a big barn and smithy. His wife was Catrina 
Meyer, and they had two sons and three daughters. Their outlook 
was more restricted but not less beautiful than that of Garrett's. 
"The Kaaterskill path" was near the door, while beyond the "klaver 
wey" the Katskill wound in graceful curves. The house had a roof 
of red tile and its interior was much the same as Garret's, while over 
the "stoep" on the front were fastened the iron figures 1729. Here 
he, too, brought his wife and children, the youngest Anna Maria 
(afterward the wife of Rev. .lohannes Schuneman), but a year old. 

Within the next two years Jan Bronck at the ford had replaced 
his log cabin with a dwelling of stone, and Salisbury had built two 
for his sons along the highway, one of which at least was larger 
and more imposing than those of his neighbors. Its location was 
well chosen and commanded a view of the Katskill valley to the 
mountains beyond. Across the Katskill was Potic Mountain, its 
seamed and rocky sides covered with forest trees, while below the 
waters flowed peacefully along, now and then stayed for a time by 
slanting reefs or deep dangerous pools. In summer days of sun- 
shine a quiet stream, but when prolonged rains or sudden tempests 
made rivers of its tributaries, then the valley was a stretch of angry 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



11 



waters carrying with it bobbing driftwood, undermined trees, shocks 
of corn, golden pumpkins twisting and twirling as they sailed along, 
perhaps a pig or a cow that had been overtaken by the flood, but 
always leaving when its angry mood was past a rich deposit of earth 
spread over the land. 

In 1732 the yeomen of old Katskill and the Imboght met to- 
gether to discuss community betterment. 

"The time has come," said the elder Van Bergen, "when for the 
sake of our young men and maidens a church should be built. Cate- 
chising is not enough, and our young children must be taken to the 
"steene kirk ob de Kaatsban," now being built, or to Albany for 
baptism. Some die without the right and are lost." 



>\J^ 








5i;:,^<...ft>'ie...;,J;,,, 






OLD KATSKIM. CHIKCH, 1733 



"But where shall the church be built," asked Van Orden of the 
Imboght. 

"I will give the land," said the younger Van Bergen. "The 
knoll yonder is a proper spot and nigh the house where people can 
eat their dinner around the fire in winter." 

"A fair offer," said Salisbury, and "I will give money and 
labor; doubtless our neighbors at the Imboght will aid us." 

"There is talk," said another, "that the yeomen of Kocksackie 
have a church in mind: perchance if they be willing a man could be 
found to serve both." 

Soon work began on the new church. A space was cleared "100 
yards north of Van Bergen's house," and timbers were hauled to the 
spot. Everyone worked with a will, and yeomen from the Landing. 
Kocksackie and the Imboght helped with the raising. 

It was on occasions such as this that the table was set in the 
long hall at Van Bergen's, and huge joints of beef and mutton on 
pewter platters were brought out with roelitjes, cider, applesauce 
and all the good things the Dutch vrouws were capable of making. 
After dinner came long-stemmed pipes, the little slave boys passing 
around the hot coals tightly pinched in the pipe-lighters, news was 
exchanged, the equipment of the new church discussed, and all the 
details of its completion. Fifty feet square it was to be, with a roof 
like a pyramid, the top forming a belfry: a large door on its eastern 



12 HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 

end with a small one on either side. Inside was the "doop huys" 
and on each side the deacons" and elders" seats. Benches were 
fastened to the walls around the room, and in the center two rows 
of twelve pews each with aisle between. On the west side were the 
"mans bancken' (seats for men), and on the east side "vrouwen 
bancken" (seats for women). The Dutch church at Albany was 
their model. 

The shingles for the roof (6160 of them) cost 15 pounds and 
6d. Rum and gin were passed around at the raising, for these were 
common drinks at that time although intoxication was rare. 

On Feb. 25, 173 2, old and young gathered together, for a call 
had been given (Feb. 8th) to Rev. George Michael Weiss by the 
landowners. DuBois, Oosterhoudt. Van Vechten, Bronk, Salisbury. 
Dederick, Overbaugh and the two Van Bergens. Now the "organ- 
ization was to be accomplished, a Consistory was elected and the 
minister installed.'" The church had not yet been built, and it is 
not known where he preached during the interval — it may have been 
in the schoolhouse .which according to an old deed stood near the 
parsonage. 

Dominie Weiss was "to preach God's word purely in the low 
Dutch language, twice daily on every Lord"s Day and on other feast 
days, also to exercise the congregation and the youths by catechical 
instruction at the proper opportunity, to administer the sacraments 
according to the institution of Christ, to maintain church discipline 
and to catechise the children of the German brethren residing 
among us, in their language: and furthermore to do everything 
required of a faithful servant of Jesus Christ in accordance with 
God's word, the good discipline of the Reformed Church and its 
laudable customs in this country; which said service your Reverence 
must perform in Katskill 30 Sundays during the year and in Kock- 
sackie 2 2 Sundays by turns, also on feast days by turns, which shall 
be regulated by the Rev. Consistory. * * * It has been resolved 
that your Reverence shall receive and en.joy a salary of 50 pounds 
per year currency of New York, to be paid by the Reverend Con- 
sistory in all sincerity as long as your Reverence shall perform the 
pastoral duties and before mentioned service among us. in two pay- 
ments, every half-year the just half amounting to 2 5 pounds: and 
besides your Reverence shall be provided with a free dwelling and 
sufficient land therewith for a proper garden either in Katskill or in 
Kocksackie according to your choice: and free firewood for your 
own use. and a proper riding-horse with saddle and bridle as your 
own property, and if for the occasion of using it the horse should 
die the loan of another, to ride from one place to the other in order 
to perform the holy services; and if your Reverence should happen 
to be called away to another congregation, you shall continue in our 
service until we have again procured another preacher, provided 
such service does not continue for more than a year after such call 
on you. * « * •• To this call seventeen names were signed. 

At last the church was finished and the first service was to be 
"held within its walls. It was an eventful day for these stern. God- 



HISTORIC CATSKILI— OLD KATSKILL 13 

tearing men and women, their families and slaves. A hush that 
could be felt stole over the people as Dominie Pietrus Van Driesen 
of Albany invoked God's blessing upon this congregation gathered 
under their own church roof. The sermon that followed was taken 
from the 2 7th Psalm, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will 
I seek after; that 1 may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of 
my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and enquire in his temple." 

Between services the congregation gathered around the fire at 
Martin Van Bergen's, eating the luncheon they had brought. When 
the time came for the afternoon service the "foot-stoves were re- 
filled with hot coals and all returned to the church." 

Francis Salisbury and Abram Provost were elected elders, Jacob 
Broeck and Frederick Streydt deacons. The church had a firm hold 
on the people in those days, and this was a truly great occasion; the 
new church, the solemn tones of the .bell as it echoed back from the 
hills which had never before heard such a strange sound; the little 
children and dusky slaves all reverent and attentive during the long 
sermon, which "told more of the wrath to come, the lake which 
burns with fire and brimstone," than of God's love and care for his 
children. There were long-drawn-out prayers for mercy and forgive- 
ness, and the monotonous chant of the Psalms. 

Few could stand the test to-day of such religious thoroughness 
and length, but In those days even the youngest was taught self- 
control, and restlessness was at all times frowned upon. The women 
were modest but self-reliant, for the Dutch housewife, though 
seeming to be in the background, ruled her husband. They were 
dressed in homespun, with quilted hoods and capes. The men were 
straight, strong and muscular, with faces of character and firmness 
and if need be sternness, which could relax into jovial goodfellow- 
ship. Washington Irving, skilled writer though he was, pictured a 
very different Dutchman from the real Hollander of Old Katskill and 
that period, as numerous family portraits testify. Like many a one 
to-day, he made no distinction between a Hollander and a German. 

The day's events over, the horses were brought out and fastened 
to deep-boxed sleighs, some mounted their horses with wife and 
child behind them, and started on their return to distant homes, 
"for twilight would quickly pass, and darkness shut down suddenly 
along the rough roads little better than trails," with the trees of 
the forest set close. 

The church had been organized February 25, 1732, and one 
year and nine months later (November 25, 1733) it was dedicated. 
Only three years did Weiss minister to this people, faithfully follow- 
ing the forest paths every other Sunday to Kocksackie; then he left 
for Philadelphia. It is not known where he made his home while 
preaching at Old Katskill, but a stone bearing the date, June 12, 
1733, and the initials C. V. B. and D. V. B. was taken from the 
parsonage of 1754 (built or re-built for Schuneman ) at the time of 
its destruction. This stone is now in the possession of Washington 
Van Vechten. 

It was difficult to find a proper and satisfactory man to fill the 



14 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



place of Dominie Weiss, for few cared to take up ministerial duties 
in a new country, with long stretches of solitary forest between the 
two congregations, and for seventeen years the Consistory struggled 
with the problem, holding services and securing supplies for limited 
time whenever possible, now and then helped out with sacraments, 
weddings, the baptism of infants and the burial of the dead, by the 
dominies of Albany or Kaatsban. 

In 1710 there had been born to Hermanns and Elizabeth Schune- 
man a son who was christened Johannes. In later years he departed 
from the faith of his fathers, who were Lutherans, and became the 
chosen pastor of Old Katskill, but before he could be intrusted with 
the flock it was necessary that he should be sterilized in Dutch 
manners and customs, as well as instructed in Dutch theology, so at 
the expense of the churches of Old Katskill and Kocksackie he was 
sent to Holland for two years that this proper result might be 
obtained. Returning when his studies were finished in 1754. his 
waiting people found he had not only acquired the desired theological 
finish but also an undesirable "disfigurement left by the small pox, 
so that his sweet-heart, Anna Van Bergen, did not recognize him." 
Very soon after his return he took up his duties as pastor and 
married Anna Maria. 




I'.VKS<)N.\(;K at <>M) k.atskim. 

The Rev. .lohannes is described "as short and corpulent with a 
voice of great power," and has left behind a record of forty-one 
years of "faithful and untiring service." In 1754 a new parsonage 
was built or the old one repaired, and in eleven years the good 
dominie and his wife added seven little Schunemans to the popu- 
lation, two of whom died in infancy. 

Of all the homes of the early settlers, the location of the par- 
sonage was the finest. Its outlook was bounded on the west by the 
Catskills with hills, valley and stream between. On the north was 
Potic Mountain, her smaller sister High Hill nestling beside her. 
Along their sides on October days the sun chased shadows across 
varying shades of red and yellow, or the mists clung lovingly on 
foggy mornings. The rumbling of the waters of the Catskill as they 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 15 

flowed over rifts and rocks plunging merrily to lower levels came up 
to the door, from which could be seen the deeper waters which tarried 
for awhile as they swung out of the current, and hemmed in by per- 
pendicular cliffs formed a quiet bay apart from the rushing stream. 

Between the coming of Schuneman and the unsettled time 
preceding the Revolution were uneventful years, when little of 
interest took place excepting to those who lived them. There were 
rumors of Indian trouble, and now and then settlers on their way 
to the "Western Country" beyond the mountains tarried for a time 
with the hospitable Dutchmen of the valley. Somewhere along the 
Kaaterskill where the "wolf-pits used to be" was built the house of 
Gysbert Oosterhout, who died in 1790. He was a man of powerful 
frame and many stories are told of his great strength. He served 
through both the French and Revolutionary wars. 

Jurry and Michael Plank purchased 90 acres of Marten Van 
Bergen and built a stone house in a little valley (E. Parks's) near 
the "kelder kiltje." Here the hills divided into ravines, the sides of 
which at that time must have been covered with trees, and at the 
entrance of one of these ravines, where it was intersected by another, 
stood the house. Always the home of the pioneer was built near a 
stream or spring, and usually against a sheltering hillside, for where 
all was a wilderness a view was of little account. Down the inter- 
secting ravine at the home of the Planks ran the "kelder kiltje or 
little brook." its source far up the valley, and down the other ran a 
still smaller one joining the first, then wandering aimlessly as the 
nature of the land allowed until the united waters joined the Kaaters- 
kill. The house has long since been torn down, but on a knoll 
across the stream is the burial place of the Planks. On the hill 
northeast of his home were later the homes of George and Peter 
Brandt. 

In 175S the news of the death of Garret Van Bergen passed 
from house to house. He had been a good neighbor, improving his 
estate and bringing up his family in the approved Dutch fashion. 
Deborah had married John Person, blacksmith; William had chosen 
his cousin Catharine; Peter had died, and the rest of the seven had 
married wisely. The eldest Garret inherited the homestead and had 
the reputation of being unthrifty, but his will shows that at the 
time of his death he still possessed 6,000 acres "along the Katskill 
and Batavia Kills." 

1758 saw the fall of Ticonderoga. Crown Point, Niagara and 
Quebec, and with the conquest of Canada came a great change in 
the settlement of New York state, for the fear of French and Indians 
was removed. 

In 1760 Solomon DuBois. who lived along the Kaaterskill, fol- 
lowed Garret Van Bergen. He had combined the trade of blacksmith 
with that of farmer. To be a blacksmith in those days was to "forge 
horseshoes, plows, spades, buckles, hinges, locks and holts," and 
furnish "mine vrouw with pot-hooks, fire-dog tongs, shovels and a 
few cooking utensils." For pick-up work he had the "hammering 
into shape of wrought iron nails with their clumsy heads." His 



16 



HISTORIC CATSKILIr— OLD KATSKILI 



house had been built in 1751 and was along "the trail of the Indians 
which ran to the headwaters of the Schoharie Kill." 

The road from Leeds to Cauterskill was first a trail through 
the forest, then a "wagon road," and as early as 1733 called the 
"Cauterskill path or road." In 1690 Van Bergen had a saw-mill on 
the north side of the stream at the falls of the Kaaterskill, and in 
1733 there were both grist and saw-mills of Salisbury and Van 
Bergen. The road from old Catskill crossed the creek below the 
falls by a ford, and there was another ford between what Is now 
Barrengers and Brandow's. Near this was the house of Garret Van 
Bergen, grandson of the pioneer. Over the "Cautrix Kill" In 1794 
began the building of a bridge; the contractors, M. G. Schuneman 
and John Cook. Those who had the matter in charge were William 
Van Bergen. William Brandow and Jacob Bogardus. Bogardus had 




OLD <<)VKKKI) BKIIXiK, C.\l TERSKILI> 



a plaster-mill there. In 1S15 a bridge was built across the stream 
"at or near the falls of Joseph Klein," and during the "great shower" 
a few years later Klein's mills were rendered useless. In 1830 John 
Adams and George More were manufacturing paper at the "Kaaters- 
kill mills," and still later John C. Johnson had a planing mill, sash,, 
blind and door-factory. For a time the brick building on the south- 
west side was known as Reed's pistol-factory. 

The daughter of William Klein, a former merchant of Catskill 
living on the bank of the Kaaterskill, is described as a "polite, well- 
educated young lady who could play the piano and sing. She had a 
very good complexion with rather too much ivory for a handsome 
mouth, but was tolerably pretty in spite of her teeth. Her music- 
master was a little deformed son of Italy." The mills at this time 
(probably about 1840) were used for the "manufacture of thread 
and twine, but the quality of twine was not up to expectations of the 
owner and much of it remained unsold." 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 17 

In 1761 Petrius Van Bergen, who married Elizabeth Newkirk 
of Kingston, built himself a "sandstone house on the north side of 
the Katskill near the Potic" (on Mead farm). 

During the years of unrest and dissatisfaction with English rule 
preceding the Revolution the people at Old Catskill kept in touch 
with the news by messengers passing up and down the river, and 
frequently the principal men of the settlement were called to Albany 
to consult with officers of the Fort, so they were prepared for an out- 
break at any time, but outwardly things went on much the same. 
Dominie Schuneman preached forcibly and to the pOint on the ques- 
tions of the day, urging independence of thought and action, fore- 
seeing the crisis that would soon be upon them. The Boston mas- 
sacre, the Boston Tea Party and the first Continental Congress were 
the subjects of their daily conversation, and kept them boiling and 
seething within. The battle of Lexington cailsed as much excite- 
ment as a genuine Dutchman would allow himself to show, and was 
the signal for general preparedness. 

Samuel Van Vechten had received his commission as captain 
from Cadwalder Colden in 17 70. "He served at Ticonderoga, Skeens- 
burg and Fort Edward, and was sent to and fro with important 
dispatches." "Barent Staats Salisbury, grandson of Francis, won 
great honor," and in 1777 he was made first lieutenant in the first 
regiment of the New York line, and saw service at Saratoga, Mon- 
mouth and Yorktown. Of the two sons of Isaac DuBois "it was 
agreed that John should remain at home and Joel join the militia." 
Joel was but fifteen when he enrolled as a minute man. "He served 
along the Mohawk and was garrisoned at Johnson Hall." 

Old Catskill was second to none in patriotism and zeal for the 
colonies. Traitors there were, but the landed proprietors and influ- 
ential men were loyal patriots or in a few cases peaceful loyalists. 
Dominie Schuneman had no excuse for the Tory, and with great 
earnestness preached the duty of defending the country. His pow- 
ertul voice rang through the church as his enthusiasm grew with 
words, and he was a foe to all who dared to differ from him. He had 
strong faith in God's protecting hand, but he also believed in 
preparedness, and whether in the pulpit or riding alone through 
the forest to Coxsackie his gun was in readiness. "The parsonage 
was always open to soldiers returning from the front, and if sick 
or wounded, as often happened, were well cared for." 

As time passed there was redoubled vigilance in guarding 
against Tories and Indians, and anxious hearts for those at the 
front. Schools were almost abandoned for the time, and settlers 
in isolated spots removed their families when possible to the settle- 
ments for greater safety during their absence. The women and 
older men took up the burden and care of the farms and slaves 
dependent upon them. The murder of the Stropes at Round Top 
filled them with horror, and the capture of the Abeels and Snyders 
put them on their guard against the Tories that disgraced the valley. 

David Abeel lived along the Kaaterskill, and he had married 
Xeeltje, the daughter of Garret Van Bergen. "The family had at- 



18 



mSTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



tended service at Old ("atskill and returning home were eating their 
evening meal when the door opened and a number of Indians and 
Tories disguised as Indians entered." One of the slaves, a traitor, 
while the family were away had removed the charges from the guns 
which hung on the beams overhead. Catherine Abeel. one of the 
daughters, while the invaders were ransacking the house and de- 
stroying things generally "crept under the table and removed the 
silver buckles from her father's and brother's shoes and breeches, 




HCJMK Ol- U.Win .ABEEL IX K.*.\ TKK.SKl LI. 

hiding them in her bosom." A younger brother came home in time 
to see the party leave the house, and alarmed the settlers, but they 
failed to follow the trail, returning home next day. The long 
journey to Canada was one of great hardship and suffering. David 
could not keep up with his captors and was threatened with the 
tomahawk, but, reminding them he had once been a "trader along 
the Mohawk." he was afterward treated with respect and when 
provisions ran low they shared their portion with him. With the 
■ party were the Snyders of Saugerties, taken captive that same day. 
On reaching Montreal the prisoners were put in a cell and afterward 
parolled to an island, and finally after two years they escaped down 
the St. Lawrence; "but previous to this David on account of his age 
had been sent home." 

Benjamin Myer Brink in his history of Saugerties says: 
"Dominie Schuneman continued to come down from Katskill (1780) 
to Kaatsban to supply the pulpit. Between there and Kaatsban 
church is a distance of ten miles, and at that time it was largely 
wooded and much of it dense forest. He was intensely hated by the 
Tories because of his ardent patriotism. He hated the enemies of 
his country arid never lost an opportunity to denounce them. From 
Katskill to his other charge at C'oxsackie was a distance of twelve 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^OLD KATSKILL 19 

miles, and miuh of this way was along a forest road. But the 
dominie feared nothing but his God. No foe lived who had any 
terror for him. He was short and corpulent and marked with 
small-pox. He was a dead shot with his rifle and his enemies knew 
it. That rifle was his constant companion. He always took it with 
liim in his pulpit during these years, and when arising to preach 
set it close at his side after carefully examining the priming." 

The Rev. Dr. Henry Ostrander said of him: "His voice was one 
oi great power and compass. His distinct and impressive tones, his 
natural and vigorous gesticulation, and the manifest fervent kind- 
liness of his spirit conspired with the eminently evangelical char- 
acter of his discourses to render his preaching effective. The Revolu- 
tionary troubles called into full exercise Dominie Schuneman's in- 
tense patriotism, in connection with his heroic and self-sacrificing 
spirit. The district of country in which he lived was the theater of 
great commotion and horrid cruelty. So deeply convinced was he 
that the interests of religion, as well as the civil interests of the 
country, were bound up in the great struggle that he gave himself 
lip to it, in his appropriate way, with all the earnestness and energy 
of a ruling passion. * * * He knew well that he was looked 
upon by the enemy as a prize of no ordinary value; but nothing 
daunted by this he never withheld any good service in aid of his 
country's interests which it was in his power to render. * * * 
Xo tidings of disaster disheartened him, no impending danger terri- 
fied him, no warnings or entreaties to keep out of the way of immi- 
nent peril made any impression on him. He kept up his course 
unmoved and unharmed during all these years of war, riding every 
Sunday along his wooded roads with his trusty rifle, and his fervent 
sermons inspired the discouraged patriots until the glorious battle 
was won. His services at Coxsackie and old Katskill were regular: 
those at Kaatsban were special but very frequent." 

Dominie Schuneman never hesitated in telling the plain truth 
to his people. The attendance at the mid-week prayer meeting at 
Old Katskill being unsatisfactory, one Sunday after giving out the 
notices for the day there came a great and awful pause while the 
dominie stood looking over his flock; when he thought them suffi- 
ciently impressed, he said, "On Saturday afternoon the horses will 
run on the flats: I will be there; also at the Wednesday evening 
prayer meeting. I will then see which the most of my congregation 
attend." 

At one time his people thought him too radical in his views, 
and a member of Consistory was appointed to confer with him. Next 
Sunday, a very warm day, he laid aside his coat, vest and stock, 
saying in Dutch. "Now, friends, you will get it!" and get it they did 
— and there were no more conferences. 

Tn 1794 Dominie Schuneman died. Three years later the 
' hurch at Old Katskill was i-epaired. gallei-\- put in one end. pulpit 
lowered and other improvements made. Kocksackie had decided to 
call a minister of her own, and in 1798 Rev. Peter Labagh, who had 
for a short time been a missionary in Kentucky, where he estab- 



20 HISTORIC CATSKILL— OLD KATSKILL 



lished a church, was called to the church at Katskill and Oak Hill. 
Labagh had a fine mind and his most striking characteristics were 
great common sense and good humor. He had "large influence in 
ecclesiastical assemblies." Always cheerful, fond of a joke, he never 
grew old. He made an arrangement with one of his congregation 
that if he would smoke his hams, he (Labagh) would take no fee 
for baptizing Uncle Billys children. One day Uncle Billy brought 
twin sons, Abraham and Isaac, for baptism. "Now, Uncle Billy," said 
the dominie in Dutch, "you are cheating me." Uncle Billy took him 
seriously and offered to pay, as was the custom of that day; then 
the good man laughingly assured him he was only joking. In 1807 
he married Martin Van Buren, the future President, to Hannah Goes 
of ('atskill. After Labagh left, "Oak Hill had its own pastor." 

Dr. Henry Ostrander tarried but two years, then left for Kaats- 
ban, where he remained for fifty years. He is remembered as having 
eyes black and piercing, his hair white as snow. He administered 
communion with his own hand, first to the elders and deacons, then 
to the congregation, the slaves coming last from their seats in the 
gallery. On one occasion an old colored woman, who was probably 
asleep, did not move with the rest. Her master, an aged elder, arose 
and called out in a loud voice, "Deyaan! Deyaan! de dominie roept 
aan u!" 

Ostrander had preached at the Landing during the summer 
months, and when Peter S. Wynkoop came he preached there on 
Sunday afternoons, as did Rev. Isaac Wyckoff, who succeeded him 
(1817). The old church was torn down that year, and services 
were held in the schoolhouse in the village of Madison until such 
time as the new church should be finished, for the Consistory had 
decided that, as the tide of settlement had turned toward that place, 
it would be policy to follow after with the church of God. 

The frame of the old church was used for a grist-mill at 
Madison, and the bell was melted in an attempt to mend it by 
Martin Schuneman, who covered it with a pile of oak wood — so the 
story goes — fired it, then went over to smoke and visit with Casper 
Van Hoesen. Either the smoke lengthened into several, or, man- 
like, he forgot his occupation in gossiping with his neighbors, for 
when he returned to duty the bell was melted beyond hope of future 
usefulness. It was many a day before Martin heard the last of his 
carelessness. 

It has been claimed that Catskill was never the title of the 
vicinity of the old church — that it was only designated in general as 
Catskill town. While Old Katskill was never a village in the ac- 
cepted term, it bore the same relation to the Landing as Koxsackie 
did to what is sometimes called to-day Lower Coxsackie. The inter- 
ests of the settlement centered around the church, school, parsonage, 
the two Van Bergens, the smithy, and the three Salisburys. There 
are still standing three houses of old Katskill — that of Garret Van 
Bergen, for 150 years in the possession of the Vedders; two of the 
Salisburys', a third on the Frederick Elting farm having been torn 
down — and the first settlement has returned to country life. 



IVEA^DISOISr 

¥N the long ago, where now stands the village o£ Leeds were rocky 
* limestone ridges upon which only the toughest and strongest 
trees found root and struggled for existence. Between these ridges 
were many unfailing springs, thick forest growth, tangled under- 
brush, damp, mossy, fern-covered spots, huge wild-grape vines 
spreading from tree to tree, while around it swept the Katskill. 

There was the indescribable, hush of the forest, broken only by 
the sound of waters as they tumbled noisily over rocky beds, purred 
softly over reefs, or protested with echoing rumble at the foot of 
storm-chiseled cliffs. 

Sometimes the sky would be darkened by flocks of pigeons or 
wild ducks, or the air would resound with the cry of wild geese 
winging their way to warmer climes. The forest was full of game 
of all kinds, the deer came down to drink from the streams, and 
'•there were wild turkies with hundreds in a flock." 

Then came the Indian, but he added little to the forest sounds 
with his bow and arrow and his moccasined feet. The barking of 
his dogs and the voices of his children might be heard around the 
wigwams on the hills across the Katskill, but the war whoop seldom 
disturbed the quiet of this vicinity. 

Their footpath led from the north (Green Lake avenue, we call 
it now), and crossed the ford to the lowlands which the Indian with 
unerring instinct chose for his maize-field. On the hills above they 
had planted their wigwams, clearing the land below as the squaws 
had opportunity, for the braves hunted and fished while the Indian 
farmerette with papoose upon her back tilled the soil. It was one 
of the beginnings of country life along the Katskill. 

In 1675 the white man came into possession of a portion of the 
wilderness,, and Jan Bronck built a log cabin below the fording 
place on the east bank of the Catskill. .lan's father was a tavern- 
keeper and brewer near Fort Orange, and became so rich he sold out 
his business and invested in lands at Coxsackie, making his home 
there. He had married Hillitje Tyssinck and had two sons, Jan and 
Peter. Jan was a born trader, making frequent trips down the 
Hudson to trade with the Indians. When he was twenty-three years 
old he bought one hundred morgans (200 acres) of land. He became 
assessor and justice of the peace, and in 1711 Francis Salisbury 
conveyed to him woodland "'beginning at the north of Dircks kilitje 
(now called the Dirckskill) running northeast and west." Salisbury 
reserved the right "to cut and carry away timber for building pur- 
poses," also "the right to break and carry away stone." It has 
been inferred from this that the stone that composed his houses was 
taken from this tract. Jan at this time gave Salisbury and Van 
Bergen the privilege of building a mill or mills on the creek below 
his house (at the upper falls). 

Jan Bronck had married a daughter of Leendert Philipse Conyn. 
had nine children, and of three daughters, Agnietje married Jan 
Whitbeck, while Rev. George Michael Weiss, the first dominie of 
the Catskill valley, fell in love with Antje and they were married 
"in her fathers house." This house was of stone which in 17;?! had 



22 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 



replaced the log house. Jan A. Whitbeck (or Van Whitbeck as first 
written) the son-in-law, afterward built one of brick to which the 
stone house was attached, "finished inside with cherry paneling and 
considered very fine for the times." In 17 90 the property was sold 
to Martin G. Schunenian "for 1,187 pounds, '> shillings and 6 pence, 
and became a noted hostelry." When this house was burned down 
in 187 6 it was the home of John Van Vechten, whose second wife, 
Anna Maria, was Schuneman's daughter. At that time there was 
still standing an elm tree 29 feet in circumference set out by 
Bronck. 

In time some of the land which belonged to Bronck's farm and 
lay on either side of the "great road to the back settlements" was 
sold and a village sprang up. In 17 83 there is said to have been 
"twenty houses in the township," and soon that portion of it on the 
east bank of the creek became known as "Madison." 




UK K.AMOl S I.KKDS BKllXiK 



The first bridge across the Catskill was built of wood, but the 
spring rains made a mighty river of the stream and it was partly 
swept away. About 1760 the missing part on the east was replaced 
by two arches of stone. In 17 85 the wooden part was burned, and 
the western arches added in 1792 at a cost of 300 pounds. 

The ("atskill Packet of August 6, 1792, notes "on Thursday the 
26 ult. was completed the erecting of a bridge over Catskill creek 
about five miles from this landing, on the great road to the back 
settlements. This bridge for magnitude and elegance of structure, 
is inferior to none in the state." Just below the bridge was the old 
fording place used by both Indian and white man. 

In 1791 John Rouse, native of Holland, who had purchased of 
Salisbury and Van Bergen a large tract of land between the High 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 



23 



Hill and the Kaleberg, built a house for his son John, who had served 
in the Revolutionary Army and married Eytje Egbertson, and had 
six children. The old house still stands on the George Gonnerman 
farm, and it was from here that stone was drawn by ox-teams for 
the church at Leeds. Below the dooryard wall there is a (^ep 
spring, and a little brook with tall elms by the roadside which 
leads out of the valley. Unlike other old houses of this locality, its 
roof slopes over the porch, below which is the kitchen and place for 




KOI SK I A KM HOI SK. 



Slaves. Here in this secluded spot John raised his family of stalwart 
sons and fine-looking daughters. One of these, another John, was 
the father of Cornelius and Barent, well known, respected and life- 
long residents of this vicinity, and faithful attendants of the old 
Dutch church. Cornelius, who lived below the Kaleberg, was the 
father of the late John Rouse of Athens; of Dr. James B. Rouse, 
physician of long standing at Leeds, who married Julia B. Fowks; 



24 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

also of Isaac and Aaron, and Mrs. Alice Covey. Barent, who mar- 
ried Betsy Dewey, was the father of John D., whose home was near 
Green Lake on a part of the homestead. 

"This has been an eventful year" (1792). said mine host as the 
vilfegers gathered about the fire at the public house at Madison on 
the last day of the old year. 

"I will be much surprised." said another, "if this year be not 
the turning point for prosperity for the Landing. There are already 
ten houses there." 

"Yes, no doubt," said Martin Schuneman, who was a man of 
authority; "we are on the road to prosperity. Our little settlement 
here bids fair to, grow to large proportions if we bestir ourselves and 
the turnpike run this way, as doubtless it will. There is much of 
public interest in road-building, and it is well there should be, for 
the good of the country demands it. but I fear the Landing will outdo 
us, for it has the natural advantages of a great waterway and is the 
outlet for the back settlements.' 

Martin G. Schuneman was one of the three sons of Dominie 
Schuneman, none of whom followed his father's profession, but 
were nevertheless strong men in the community. Martin was "six 
feet three in his stockings and weighed 300 pounds." He was 
prominent in all forward movements, elected justice of the peace in 
1792, and Congressman for Greene and Ulster in 1806. William or 
Wilhelmus lived at Jefferson, and Johannes near Madison, west of 
the Potic, in the house built by Peter Van Bergen (Mead farm). 
Johannes married Mary Newkirk. 

Shortly after the completion of the new bridge the project of 
building a turnpike was discussed. 

"What is this I hear, friend Martin. " said a neighbor on his 
return from a prolonged absence; "are we to have a turnpike at 
last?" 

"True enough. Chartered company was formed the first of last 
April (1800), and the road is to run from the town of Salisbury in 
Connecticut to the ferry across the Hudson, and from the landing at 
Catskill to Wattles Ferry on the Susquehanna. The first toll-gate 
will be on Van Vechten's farm at the bend of the highway where 
you first sight Madison." 

"I hear, too," said Salisbury, "that .Varont Vedder is gone. Ah, 
well, it was to be expected, for he was well on in years. What 
disposition did he make of his property?" 

"All was equally divided between his two sons, John and Har- 
mon. John will continue in the old house, and Harmon will build 
for himself another upon the foothills farther to the north. It was 
some task to divide the land with satisfaction to both parties, but it 
has been done. " 

"I see," continued Salisbury, "your new tavern is also com- 
pleted and Joel Bellamy in possession." 

"Yes," was the reply; "my intention was to make it a store, 
which it was for a time, but since James Brown left, Bellamy thought 
to set up a tavern or 'house of entertainment' as he calls it, and 
there is plenty of business for us both." 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^MADISON 25 

In 1805 the first chartered stage-coach drew up at the tavern 
of Martin Schuneman at the bridge with a flourish of the whip and 
a toot of the horn, on its way to Unadilla. Next year Governor 
Morgan Lewis received a brigade in the little village. The number 
of houses within the village had reached ten, besides the flour- 
mill of Ira Day, three stores and two public houses (kept by Schune- 
man and Jonathan Kyes). 

Madison soon boasted (1808) a fire company provided with 
"twenty buckets, fourteen long and short ladders ironed with 
liooks," and firemen who held themselves "ready to respond at the 
first call." Madison also had an attorney, .1. T. Haight, and the 
distillery of Ard Reynolds called for 6,000 bushels of corn and rye. 
Some time before 1814 the building that now shelters the first four 
grades of the village school was built. The first schoolhouse stood 
near the old parsonage. In January of 1815 the trustees were Joel 
Bellamy, Joseph Wardwell and John P. Newkirk. Several Yankee 
houses (as the wooden ones were called) had been built, and the 
older houses added to as families grew, and they grew amazingly 
fast. The Dutch resented the coming of the Yankees and the Ger- 
mans. The former, according to the late Henry O. Limbrick, were 
called "those red-headed Yankees from Massachusetts who had no 
business to come across the river to settle. They could not bear 
their red hair and would not have their money in the bank, nor 
their young people keep company with them." The animosity of 
the Dutch toward the Germans had been brought from Holland. 
Both Yankees and Germans on their side despised the Dutch, who 
were the first on the spot and had the pick of the land; but as time 
passed the younger ones in spite of paternal authority intermarried, 
and the settlement became a melting pot which turned out mostly 
Dutchmen, for the Dutch customs and dialect predominated for 
many years. 

It was about 1813 that Samuel Fowks established a plow works. 
He was an enterprising blacksmith, and was soon making iron plows 
for the farmers, casting them himself. It is said '"he placed a dish 
or ladle in the bottom of the furnace and built around it a fire of 
charcoal." Two slaves blew the fire, and when sufficiently hot the 
melting iron ran down into the ladle; when this was full its con- 
tents were poured into a mould. "Thus the first iron plow was cast 
at Leeds. His sons, William and Edward, were his successors, and 
in 1850 Milton Fowks succeeded them." 

Martin G. Schuneman in 1816 gave a piece of ground — or solid 
rock — in the center of the village upon which to build a new church. 
It was well suited for the purpose. 1816 is known as the year 
without a summer. April was warm but May set in with Winter 
weather, snow and ice. The ponds and streams were frozen over, 
and almost the same condition prevailed in June. Winds from the 
north brought snow and ice throughout the summer, and August 
was colder than the months that had gone before. But for fish and 
game there would have been much suffering. Little work was 
done on the new church. There were two stone-drawing bees in 



26 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 



which cider, rum aud ham figured largely in the expense, and it 
was not until the fall of 1S18 that the church was finished. On the 
Fourth of July of that year, while yet unfinished, the first service 
was held. This service was arranged by a committee composed of 
Selleck Dan, .John P, Newkirk, Garret Person, jr., and John L. Nash. 
A procession started from the house of Robert K. Moulton at 9:30 
a. m. and proceeded to the church, where "Rev. Dr. Porter made a 
prayer and Rev. John Wyckoff preached a discourse adapted to the 
occasion." Rev. Mr. Livingston concluded with prayer, after which 
all gathered in the grove near by for dinner. The first couple on 
record to be married in the new church were Elisha Bishop and 
Anna Van Bergen. Miss Sarah Elizabeth Comfort was born the same 
year (1818), and ninety-five years later was buried from its doors, 
having been a member for seventy-five years. 

The hall of the new church had a staircase in each end; the 




l.KKDS KKFt>KMKI> (1)1 TCH) CHI ItCH, ISIS 

gallery was supported by large wooden pillars and had tiers of 
seats rising one above another. The pews below were square, 
making two when the church was altered. These were rented for 
999 years, but under certain conditions of rental. The pulpit stood 
high and has twice been altered to its present state. A bass viol 
helped out the choir, and at one time was played by William New- 
kirk. Nelson Smith (or Major Smith, as he was called) played the 
flute. Some time in the early history of the church a violin was 
introduced, but the pastor did not approve, and after reading the 
hymn said with a note of irritation in his voice, "Now fiddle and 
sing." 

In one corner, raised on a level with the gallery, was later put 
a stove "to encourage regular attendance in cold weather." You 
have all heard of the dissenters who refused to believe in stoves, and 



/ 

HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 27 

sat throughout the service in their shirt-sleeves because of the ex- 
treme heat, although it was afterward proved to them no fire had 
been built that day. Before the stove incident the women brought 
foot-stoves filled with hot coals covered with ashes. 

The late Peter Van Vechten used to tell of childhood Sabbaths 
which to an uneasy boy were a sore punishment. He was expected 
to sit quietly not only during the long service, but was rebuked if 
he indulged in anything approaching mirth throughout the day, for 
he was supposed to occvipy his mind with serious things, studying 
his catechism or reading religious books. The time for going to 
pasture for the cow at the other end of the village was hailed with 
delight, and it took the cow a long time on Sundays to reach her 
stable. 

While living in Jefferson, his father had seats made like chairs 
for the lumber wagon — the whole family went to church — and one 
Sunday the horses gave a sudden spring, tipping out the seats and 
their occupants, upsetting a foot-stove which set fire to the straw in 
the bottom of the wagon. The horses ran away, and it was some 
time before the women, boys and slaves were sorted out and the fire 
extinguished. This was one of the times when the family was late 
at service (an unpardonable offense). 

Rev. Isaac Wyckoff was the last pastor who understood and 
if necessary could preach in the Dutch language. The seventeen 
years of his stay were years of prosperity and development in state. 
<ounty and church. 

Rev. John C. Van Liew assisted Mr. Wyckoft' for fourteen 
months and then (1833) became pastor. He was the first to occupy 
the parsonage at Leeds, which was then a house on Main street next 
the Dirkskill (where Dederick now lives). In 1852 it was sold to 
Dr. Jeremiah Greene. Considerable trouble was experienced in 
buying a lot for the second parsonage in the village. One below the 
bridge was selected, and John Van Vechten tried to hold them to 
their bargain, and another with Abram Newkirk was released only 
by order of the court. Other troubles in securing a lot resulted in 
hard feelings and the resignation of a member of Consistory, but 
finally all differences were adjusted, a lot was obtained of Jacob 
Vedder, with free use of a well on the Vedder lot adjoining; a house 
built in 1852. which burned in 1890, and the present parsonage built 
in 1891. 

The name Madison for political reasons being distasteful to 
some, an effort was made to call it Mill Village, which to some 
extent was successful, but in April of 1827, when a new post office 
was established with H. Whittlesey as postmaster, the name was 
changed to Leeds. This name is said to have been given in honor 
of Richard Hardwick. who came from Leeds, England. In 1830 
Leeds applied for incorporation. 

The church had strict rules as to the daily conduct of its mem- 
bers. In 1826 Jeremiah Plank was convicted on his own confession 
of a "misdemeanor, unbecoming and unchristian," of "cutting down 
a tree on Sabbath morning." His punishment was temporary sus- 



28 mSTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 



pension from office. Nelly DuBois, wife of Peter Eckler, was 
denied admission because she had "married her deceased sister's 
husband," and Mrs. Slover was suspended because a committee 
reported that "she had joined the Congregational church of Mr. 
Spoor and been plunged." 

The first square-rule carpenter in this county was Silas Deane, 
who settled at Coxsackie. a descendant of the Denes or Deanes who 
came to this country in 1637. Silas also manufactured a screw 
hay-press, and married Eleanor Salisbury of Madison (Leeds). 

In 1827 Martin G. Schuneman died. His only daughter, Anna 
Maria, was one of the belles of the township and had many suitors. 
None seemed to suit her, however, and in the end she married the 
widower John Van Vechten, whose first wife was her cousin Eleanor. 
It was in 1825, shortly after the completion of the Erie Canal, that 
one of her admirers wrote the following letter on board the packet 
William C. Bouck on its way to Buffalo: 

Grand Erie Canal. Aug. 25, 1825. 

.1/// Dear Maria — The very date and direction of my letter has a 
kind of magnificence about it, which indicates the grandeur of this 
work, which is to enrich this western world. It was the spirit of a 
vast and comprehensive enterprise that suggested it; and a mighty 
genius that devised it; and a herculean power that executed it. 

Though it be but a small thing taken in its detail to dig a 
large ditch, yet on the whole to convey so far, to raise it over 
mountains; through valleys; and through marshes is magnificent 
and almost incredible; and I am delighted with this mode of travel- 
ing; certainly quietly and cheaply, you move on night and day, 
enjoying friends, read, write, study, eat, drink or sleep, as you please. 

We talked of the expense on the stage and canal and concluded 
it was about the same. This was a mistake. The difference is this: 
on the canal they charge you four cents a mile and find your 
victuals and lodging; the stage coach charges you five cents and you 
find yourself, which makes a difference of two dollars a day in favor 
of the canal, and besides you are not hurried in eating or sleeping, 
nor jolted until you are bruised from head to foot. 

I advise you by all means to take the canal when you come up. 
1 have visited the falls of Niagara and am now on my return. To 
the eye of the traveler in the system of locks at Lockport and the 
falls of Niagara are the greatest natural and artificial curiosities in 
the world. I may go around by Balston and Saratoga, and see all 
the world at once. 

Before 1S2S James Van Deusen of Columbia county had become 
the owner of the homestead of the Salisburys. His wife was Martje. 
De La Marter of Catskill, and the house thereafter became known 
as the Van Deusen House. James was a descendant of Abraham 
Pieterson Van Deursen of New Amsterdam, in 1636 one of the 
famous "twelve men of that city, a man of marked ability and 
enterprise." 

The mere mention of the name calls up the memory of that hos- 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 29 

pitable home where, forty years ago, in the long low dining room with 
beams overhead, surrounded with antique furniture, the face of the 
tall wooden clock looking down upon us as we ate from the blue china 
dishes, the Sewing Society was entertained by Miss Ann, somewhat 
angular in form and coarse of feature, inclined to blunt speeches, 
but at heart as good as gold; Miss Jane, domestic in taste, a good 
friend and neighbor; Mrs. Lyall, soft of voice and gentle of manner; 
and Mrs. Smith (her husband, Hiram, dying after six months of 
married life), dignified and ladylike. She afterward married Dr. 
Jacob Newkirk of Roxbury. 

Claudius, or Doctor, with his peculiar voice and brusque man- 
ner was an intelligent man, a large part of whose life Was spent in 
gathering old coins, books, furniture and various curios, all of 
which he delighted in showing chance visitor or guest. All have 
passed on, Mrs. Lyall, Miss Jane and Miss Ann following each other 
in quick succession. Mrs. Newkirk, twice widowed, returned to the 
old home and after ten long years of feebleness left Claudius alone, 
but not for long. His call came suddenly and almost without warn- 
ing, and the familiar form with his shepherd dog at his side was 
no longer seen about the farm or on the way to the village. His 
favorite nephew, Henry, a son of his brother Cornelius, who lived 
with him for a time, returned to New York, and a public auction 
the cherished idols of Claudius — the inlaid desk said to be three 
hundred years old. the clock, the blue china piece by piece, together 
with books, furniture and many other possessions — were scattered 
throughout the country, a sad sight but rendered necessary by his 
neglect to provide for such an emergency. 

In 1833 the church, the eldest born, still living in her ancestral 
home, having never removed from it for a single day or ceased to 
exist, parted with her birthright and became the "Reformed Dutch 
Church of Leeds and Kiskatom," her old title going to the Catskill 
church by the full consent of both Consistory and congregation, and 
after "due consideration" by a committee composed of "Samuel Wells 
of Saugerties, Garret W. Sager of Athens, and Anthony M. Van 
Bergen of Coxsackie." 

Rev. Brogan Hoff followed Mr. Van Liew and remained for 
seven years. Rev. James Romyn, who followed Mr. Hoff (so says 
Peter Van Vechten in the Catskill Examiner), "was a profound 
thinker, rapid in delivery and in touch with the current events of 
the day, which he applied to his sermons each week, and always 
gave his audience something fresh — a literary treat. He could say 
more in his second prayer than any man I ever knew. His sermons 
were seldom less than one hour, more often one and a quarter; you 
never knew when he would stop, yet I never saw one of his congre- 
gation show uneasiness. His delivery was like the rumbling of the 
lightning express — one continual flow of eloquence from start to 
finish. His sermons were discussed throughout the week; and the 
next Sunday found the people, like Oliver Twist, asking for more. 
At one time when preaching in Catskill he arose from a sick bed 
when he found his expected substitute had not arrived; prepared 
his sermon and did not disappoint his people." 



30 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

"The case of James Romyn was a peculiar one — he was pastor 
elect for over two years but was never installed. During that 
period he served the church at Leeds to the extent that his health 
would permit; his call stipulated a salary of $500." * * * 
threatened with consumption, his health and strength very uncertain, 
he also "stipulated that the amount of his services might be limited 
to what his physical condition might be able to sustain." In 1844, 
his health having improved, and having kept the church at Leeds 
in suspense all that time, he accepted a call to Bergen Neck. The 
church in the meantime had become impatient and insisted on his 
installation or resignation. He was loved and respected while in 
charge of the congregation, and they received "great spiritual 
benefits." 

Rev. W. R. S. Betts was a large, fine-looking man, with a very 
handsome wife. He remained about five years and was followed by 
Rev. Samuel T. Searles. 

About 184 5 there was but one church at Leeds, and the question 
of selling or not selling seats came vip in the old church. One side 
declared selling seats a stumbling block in the way of those sinners 
who would not give proper compensation for value received, and of 
the poor who could not. The other side argued it was the only just 
and sensible way of raising the dominie's salary, and for those who 
were too poor to pay, seats were reserved, and it was only thus the 
proud but miserly sinner could be made to come to time. Others 
declared it an unfair distinction, for ability to pay liberally would 
bring you nearer the sacred desk, and inability would push the 
worshiper toward the door in a place where all were brothers and 
sisters in the Lord. The one side was strong in influence and stiff- 
headed like their forebears, so the argument waxed hot, and the 
minority, adhering to what they considered right, began holding 
services in the schoolhouse, and in 1856 the Methodists had a church 
of their own. William G. Wolcott was the first class leader, and ten 
years after its organization (1855) a Board of Trustees was formed 
consisting of Nelson Waight, .Joel D. Comfort, William Fullager, 
James Ingram and H. Huested. (William Fullager was the father of 
Robert, the well-known lecturer.) 

A year later the church was built and cost with its equipment 
$2,809.30. It was dedicated by Rev. Jesse D. Peck, D. D. Its first 
pastor was Rev. J. W. Macomber, and that year at the house of 
Nelson Waight a donation was given him. In 1859 the parsonage 
was built. Under Rev. Mr. Demming the building was raised, mak- 
ing room for heater, assembly room, prayer meeting room and 
kitchen. When the mills were running there was a large congre- 
gation, but since that time, like the other churches of the village, 
it has greatly decreased in numbers. The parish consisted at one 
time of Leeds, Lime Street and Sandy Plains, but a few years ago 
Sandy Plains or South Cairo was taken from this charge. Improve- 
ments have been made from time to .time as need arose. Rev. 
Mr. Colman — artist preacher — contributed to the church auditorium 
a large painting of Christ on the Mount. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 31 

In 1853 there was a reorganization of a "Female Benevolent 
Association" in the Dutch Church, its records written in the fine 
ladylike hand of Miss Eliza C. Van Deusen, afterward Mrs. Lyall. 
The constitution of this female society is a wonder of humility and 
length, covering every emergency which might possibly arise, even 
to a 10 o'clock limitation as to the time and ''if advisable it should 
be lawful to adjourn in Summer without taking tea." A twelve- 
month slacker "either as to dues" (12y2C. yearly) "or work should 
be expunged from the book." A few extracts from the constitution 
will show that women were beginning to assert themselves and their 
rights in a way which the Female Benevolents did not approve. 

"Whereas," it says, "in these days of excitement and innovation 
there is so much dispute with regard to the appropriate sphere of 
women, we, the ladies of the congregation of the Reformed Dutch 
Church of Leeds, take this opportunity to state the ground which 
we assume on this disputed point: While we distinctly repudiate 
the doctrine advocated by many, that women should sally forth Into 
the field of action side by side with man, * * * neither do we 
fall into the opposite extreme and hold that she is required to fold 
her hands in idleness or spend her days in vain pursuits. We believe 
that woman has a sphere of action appropriate to her sex — modest 
but important, unobtrusive but influential. To this field she is 
appointed by her Maker and Judge." 

At one time it was resolved that "the association assume the 
debt ($400), principal and interest, to be paid in two years pro- 
viding the Consistory liquidate the debt in the same space of time 
on church and parsonage, after which they shall co-operate in re- 
seating the church." There seems to have been some difference of 
opinion, for of the thirty-three ladies voting eighteen were for and 
fifteen against the resolution, while the wife of the "squire, a grand- 
daughter of the Rev. .Johannes and inheriting some of his determin- 
ation, informed Dominie Minor in polite but not to be disputed terms 
that the ladies could decide for themselves what should be done with 
the money without help from the male sex. Soon after the Con- 
sistory expressed their appreciation of the gift in sufficiently humble 
terms. 

This partial record of a year shows the association aided the 
church financially in many ways, although they seem to have been 
timid about handling money, for their earnings when they became 
sufficiently large to be a care were put in the hands of Piatt Rouse 
for safe keeping. These were the days of the Dinghams, Philips, 
Wardens, Comforts, Planks, Dr. Dewey and Dr. Greene, while among 
others are the names of Benjamin Miller. T. Luddington and .loel 
Comfort as honorary members. 

Rev. Samuel T. Searle was mild of countenance and speech, 
courteous and kindly. I believe he baptized me, but the only thing 
of note that has come down to succeeding generations in regard to 
the important event is that he forgot his instructions and christened 
me just plain Rachel. 

This was the time when civil war clouds loomed big. During 



32 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

its progress muslin went up and up until out of sight of the minis- 
terial pocketbook. Mrs. Searle with a flock to provide for decided 
to cut up the best sheets to solve the problem of the dominie's Sun- 
day wearing apparel, but the ladies, hearing of her straits, came to 
the rescue and not only provided the muslin but helped with the 
fine stitching. J. Preston, the eldest, sat in a seat ahead of me in 
the schoolhouse on the rocks. I think my seat-mate was Mrs. Mal- 
colm of Catskill — we used to delight in poking pencils and other 
small articles down the dignified Preston's coat-collar. He never 
reported our misdeeds, but the looks he gave us were to say the least 
unbecoming the future professor of the New Brunswick Theological 
Seminary. 

To Rev. Benjamin Van Zandt, D. D., we owe the pipe organ, 
and during his pastorate evangelistic meetings were held by Mr. 
Bronk of Coxsackie for forty nights with big results; not only 
were the pews below filled but the gallery as well night after night. 
Many came out from Catskill and surrounding towns to attend the 
services. Mrs. Van Zandt was the faithful and much-loved teacher 
of the Bible class. 

Leeds was much larger then than now — a busy little village. 
There were four temperance organizations. Odd Fellows, and a 
weekly paper edited by George Warner; there were the humming, 
clanking mills, and there were lines of houses down what was called 
Back street — big boarding houses — and close-set houses on Main 
street that held the families of the workers. At closing time and 
when the bells gave out their call there was a stream of humanity 
which filled the street. Many of them were faithful church at- 
tendants; others spent their summer Sundays walking in field or 
wood, or to High Rocks. They were days of prosperity for the 
churches as well as the village. The pews were filled by whole 
families not only of the shifting population but by permanent resi- 
dents; the Eltings, Francis and James, who were elders and identi- 
fied with all church interests; the Cusslers, McGifferts, Newkirks, 
Van Deusens, Drysdales, Sterretts and others. 

I could tell you many things of the choir — their difficulties, 
their differences, and even their romances. For a long time it was 
composed of the three Smith girls (as they were called), Charles 
Sherman, Stanton and Elizabeth Palmatier, with Miss Van Zandt 
the skilled organist; later Dr. and Mrs. Rouse and Mrs. Charles 
Vedder were prominent in this work. 

I could tell you of the Sunday School with its faithful super- 
intendents: .John Whitbeck, Herrick Wilbur, Stanton Palmatier, 
Charles Vedder, Newton Brant and Henry Kamm — they stood high 
in the estimation of all; Sanford D. Plank, beloved by the children, a 
born superintendent. 

A stubby, pug-nosed little girl with tow-colored curls, I used to 
travel the dusty turnpike i-oad to Sunday School at 9 in the morning, 
recite the catechism and the ten commandments, and then sit through 
the long sermons which did not seem to have much in them for little 
girls excepting a terrifying picture of the wrath to come. I spent 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 33 

most of the time dreaming of the future when f should be old 
enough to wear a black lace shawl fastened with a cameo pin, but 
the tragedy of it was that when I was old enough lace shawls were 
out of style. 

The picnics were great events. The whole congregation turned 
out — the young men with their red-wheeled top buggies, and the 
young ladies in embroidered white dresses and leghorn hats with 
white feathers (the longer the feather the more stylish you were). 
Swings, lemonade and peanuts were the chief attractions of the 
youngsters, and there was no food conservation. When a thunder 
shower came up there was a general scramble for some house, where 
they presented a sorry sight — white dresses hung starchless about 
their feet, the feathered leghorns clung to their ears, and rivulets 
from the roses on their hats, red or yellow, as the case might be, ran 
down their faces. Babies cried, and a terrific clap of thunder 
brought forth shrieks of fear from timid ones. The provisions had 
been hastily gathered up — cake, pie, pickles, and sandwiches were 
hopelessly mingled together. These picnics were held in Newkirk's 
Grove, near what is now called Gypsy Point, and where there is not 
one trace left of the grove. 

There were the donations at the parsonage, where we sat and 
looked at each other throughout the evening, the great event the 
supper, for were not the boys lined up on each side of the hall, and 
it required courage to pass down the line not knowing which, de- 
sirable or undesirable, would step out as you passed — possibly none, 
and that was still a greater calamity. Th-s sociables were a little 
different, for those were held out in the country and required a top 
buggy to take you there. The singing school was held in the school- 
house (sometimes in Warner's Hall) and not strictly connected with 
the church, but then all worth-while community life centered in 
the church and of course the choir attended and were given prefer- 
ence. Here, too, the boys lined up in the hall, to the delight of a lot 
of teasing, giggling youngsters. I always went to singing school. 
Why, it is hard to tell, for I have never been able to sing, but I 
can still plainly hear the voices of those who joined in singing 
".Jingle Bells" and "America," or who tried the scales with vim 
and vigor. 

Youth followed old age, and Rev. C. P. Ditmars came fresh 
from the New Brunswick Seminary in 1879. A few months later he 
took unto himself a wife. In 1882 was held the 150th anniversary, 
when old pastors and able speakers were present. The three years 
of his stay were those of deep satisfaction to his people and it was 
with great regret that his resignation was accepted, although I 
suspect they had been trying years for the young dominie and 
his family. 

The Sewing Society that has done such good work and is still 
alive and active at the age of forty-two was organized by Mrs. Dit- 
mars. Two of the charter members — Mrs. .1. B. Rouse, and Mrs. W. 
Van Vechten, who were officers — are still at the helm, while Miss 
Jennie Lewis (now Mrs. Malcolm) and Mrs. Ditmars have gone to 



34 HISTORIC CATSKILI^MADISON 

other homes. The others — Mrs. Dewey (the first president), Mrs. 
Moses Palmatier, Mrs. Stanton Palmatier, Miss Elizabeth Palmatier, 
Mrs. Joseph McGiffert, Mrs. Charles Vedder, Miss Anna Ditmars and 
Mrs. Scipel have all passed on. The society's numbers grew rapidly 
until they included nearly all the women of the congregation, with 
several honorary members among the men. 

I could tell you many things about this society. The thrill of 
handing Elder Day that first $150 on the church debt; of all those 
drives Ijehind staid old horses the men were willing to trust us 
with — no automobile could ever do more thrilling stunts than those 
same old horses, who sometimes refused to be tied, and sometimes 
refused, like their gasoline successors, to go at all. We met with 
Mrs. Harmon Cole out South Cairo way, Mrs. Palmatier and Mrs. 
Newkirk at the Potic, Mrs. Isaac Vedder and all the other Vedders, 
Mrs. Sanford Plank, Mrs. Gonnerman of the stone house in the 
valley, Mrs. Laraway and Aunt Katie Salisbury, Mrs. Van Hoesen, 
Mrs. White, Mrs. Elmendorf, Mrs. Green, Mrs. Brandt, Mrs. Person 
and a dozen others. 

For the small sum of 10c. the men might come to tea, which 
•was restricted to plain fare, but the serpent crept in as in the be- 
ginning of man's existence, suggesting to the women more and 
more forbidden fruit, and the prescribed simple menu became a feast. 
In self-defense the society voted to go home supperless. 

Rev. Elbert X. Sebring and his kindly wife went quietly in and 
out for five years, when he was called up higher. During that 
time the interior of the church was changed from solid gallery 
enclosure to the present railing, the four windows on the north 
closed up, and the old pulpit replaced by a more modern one, the 
gift of Silleck D. Smith. The chairs were given by Mrs. William 
Newkirk and daughter Elizabeth, while the table was the gift of 
Mr. Sebring. The beautiful elm near the front of the church and 
others by the chapel and along Main street were set by Edwin 
Greene, a former resident who with his family attended this church. 

Several years of disaster and trying events followed. The 
parsonage was destroyed by fire and many of the church records 
lost, while the church was overwhelmed at the disclosures that 
followed. In 1891 Rev. Clarence M. Perlee was installed and the 
parsonage was rebuilt. In 1893 the lot adjoining the church was 
purchased and sheds built by the Sewing Society; the old building 
which had served as a hotel, a store, and lastly a saloon was con- 
verted into a place of prayer and social gatherings. 

Rev. C. M. Perlee, devoted and conscientious pastor for eight 
years, left behind many friends. His most efficient work was among 
the young people and in the Christian Endeavor Society, which he 
organized. In a letter written just after the 175th anniversary he 
speaks of the dear old church and the people, noting the fact that 
a brother of Rev. Peter Labagh, a former pastor here, introduced 
the English language in the St. Thomas church. West Indies, where 
Mr. Perlee was then located; and a son of Rev. Isaac Wyckoff was 
also a pastor there, "which, you see," he writes, "makes a sort of 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 35 

bond between the two churches, and I hope that God will bless 
both pastor and people of the Leeds church more and more as the 
days go by." 

It was at Mrs. Perlee's suggestion, and to her is due in a large 
measure its success, that the cook book was printed. For a long 
time it brought in a steady revenue, nine hundred copies in all hav- 
ing been disposed of. 

Rev. E. T. F. Randolph made friends among the younger set, 
his appeal and influence having most weight there. He introduced 
the responsive reading of the Psalms. During his short stay of 
two years he had little time to carry out his plans for future spiritual 
and temporal advancement. 

Rev. F. V. Van Vranken, D. D., graced this pulpit with dignity 
and scholarly sermons for twelve years. The chapel was built under 
his supervision by the Ladies' Sewing Society; the electric lights 
given by Hasbrouck Newkirk; the old steps removed, a new ceiling 
put on, the interior thoroughly renovated and the kitchen enlarged 
by the Invlncibles; a new carpet was provided by the late Mrs. 
Sutton; individual communion service by Mrs. Anna Hunter and 
Miss Alice Newkirk, and the 175th anniversary of the church organ- 
ization celebrated with great success. 

Mr. Van Vranken left a somewhat discouraged Consistory whose 
faith in God and the congregation needed boosting. The young people 
wanted youth and enthusiasm; the Ladies' Aid, steadfastness and 
creed; while the Friday Club desired literary attainments and a fine 
appearance. It was plain one man was not likely to have all these 
virtues, so Sister Smith hoped he would at least be pious. 

The first man who was willing to exhibit his mental powers 
that we might appraise their value was gifted with oratory. His 
words flowed forth continuously and effectively, bvit he would have 
none of us. The second proved undesirable — a gold brick, as it 
were; while thirdly appeared on an ill-chosen day of driving, drift- 
ing snow — an approach to a blizzard — the few who managed and 
conscientiously waded to the church were hardly noticeable, and 
empty pews tend to embarassment and lack of enthusiasm. He 
reached home next day with two frozen ears and a sense of failure. 
Fourthly, pompous and unafraid, read his sermon through his nasal 
organ, sprinkling it plentifully with All's and Oh's as if in pain. He 
was followed next morning by sincere wishes for a safe journey — 
without return. 

However, in time the right man appeared and Rev. John H. 
Helnrlchs took up the work with enthusiasm, and to the cares he was 
expected to assume added semi-monthly meetings in the Athens 
schoolhouse, later giving this up for the more pressing need (because 
of war conditions) at Kiskatom, holding services every Sunday after- 
noon at the church there. Since his coming many improvements 
have been made, and the late .Toseph McGiffert made possible electric 
lights for the church. 

There are many dropped threads in the weaving of the history 
of this village. As I first remember it, it was like all mill villages. 



36 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

composed of different classes and nationalities; old residents and a 
constantly shifting population. The early years of my life were 
more intimately connected with the place and people of Jefferson, 
and my first recollections of Leeds are of a small private school and 
the old church. The school was kept by the mother of Milton Fowks 
of the plow works, in the basement reached by natural stone steps. 
It is but a hazy recollection at best, but I know that Mrs. Fowks was 
an honored and respected resident, a woman of considerable ability. 
Of the schoolhouse on the hill there was then but one room with 
benches and desks around the wall, with Mr. McGiffert as teacher. 
Afterward, when the front room was added and there were three 
teachers, my mind goes back to Prof. Ryan of beautiful penmanship 
as shown in reports of that date. Others were Mr. Renne, and Mr. 
Greene, whose daughter Clara was one of the pupils. 

There was a little store opposite the schoolhouse, its bell going 
tinkle, tinkle, when the door was opened, and Mrs. Teich with gold 
hoops in her ears left her household duties when the good man was 
busy elsewhere, to deal out the candies. Next was the cider-mill, 
a blacksmith shop and a row of houses close to the walk; the 
Wardwell house at the back on what was once a part of the main 
highway; the Oosterhout house, whose door opened on the street, 
was next to Laraway's, and a house or store where now is Harris 
Edward's blacksmith shop. The Company store, and Herrick Wil- 
bur's, with its evergreen-shaded yard, stood across the narrow street 
beyond the Fulton house. Another block of mill houses is now the 
St. George. The stone store of Martin Schuneman was then stand- 
ing (B. T. White's), the meat market and house of David Duncan. 
Smith & Newkirk hotel, and the tavern of Schuneman (then Squire 
Van Vechten's). The two last-named burned in the big fire of 1876. 
and the others in 1883. The Van Vechten house was rebuilt but 
again burned in 1891. 

I used often to be sent on errands to the old tavern which had 
been used as a house for many years, but standing behind a row of 
horse chestnuts still retained its double-decked piazza (which seems 
to have been the fashion for taverns) with an extension which was 
t*he squire's office, and the basement (probably the old bar room) 
then used for fuel and storage. The Elizabeth House occupies the 
site. 

The upper piazza led into the broad hall, with its quaint pic- 
tures, books, maps, mahogany table and horsehair sofa, to the dining 
room where great-aunt Maria was sure to be found at her desk or 
mending. The dining table was covered with a red cloth on which 
was a fruit-dish with open-work sides containing oranges and grapes. 
Beside the door which led down to the kitchen (the stone house of 
Jan Bronck), where Betty and Dick presided, was a tall secretary 
upon whose paneled doors were inlaid angels or cherubs, on its 
carved top a warrior with shield and spear. Through the window 
could be seen the Catskill flowing through the arches of the stone 
bridge. 

Great-aunt Maria was very dignified, with white kerchief and 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 37 

cap with lavendar ribbons, and it would not have been well to offend 
her by bad manners. Once I found her very much disturbed because 
Uncle John had gone to church with his garden hat on, and so dis- 
tressed was she when she discovered it, too late for remedy, that 
she walked in the open door to her seat far up the aisle with her 
parasol over her head, and, as if that were not enough, it must needs 
have a slit in it on the side toward the congregation. 

Silleck Dan Smith, named for his grandfather, Silleck Dan, was 
postmaster and had his office in Smith's Hotel with a bell outside, 
supposed to be pulled when he was not seated at his desk in front 
of the window. He was a thin, wiry man, lame from a fall in 
childhood, the sage of the village but somewhat inclined to be testy 
as the effect of years of ill health, and would fly into rage if the 
bell were pulled more than once, which mischievous children often 
did. One day a companion gave it two sharp pulls and ran, leaving 
me to face his wrath alone. I stood open-mouthed until the storm 
had passed, then took the letters he thrust out, and fled. Next day 
an orange was handed out with the mail, for in spite of his quick 
temper he was ready with apology when it cooled. He was always 
held in great respect by the townspeople, and Martin G. Schuneman 
gave him the old hogskin family bible as a keepsake. 

John Burroughs was one of the village storekeepers, living in 
the house next the store. He built a brick building on the site of 
the old one, which he sold to Louis Teich, whose father, a cloth- 
maker, came from Germany to New York when Louis was but three 
years old, living there a year before coming to Leeds, where for a 
time the family, consisting of wife and two sons, lived opposite the 
present store, later buying the property opposite the school. 

Next above the schoolhouse still stand the dwellings of tue 
Montgomerys, Wrigleys, and William Fowks. The home of Joel 
Comfort is now a grocery store, and church sheds stand where there 
was a blacksmith and wagon-maker's shop, the chapel occupying a 
tavern site of early date. Another tavern, now The Madison, built 
before 1814 (may have been in 1796) on the other side of the church, 
with the farm was in those days the home of Edward Warner and 
had a porch over the front door. Abram Lewis lived for a long time 
on Main street, then built two houses on Green Lake avenue, in one 
of which he died. There were the Dedericks, Conines and Philip 
Wolfe, all of whom had large families and most of them still live 
at Leeds or Catskill. 

Many pleasant days were spent at a little house on the Green 
Lake road. Sometimes in the early morning the start would be made 
on "Charley Colt," an old horse raised on the farm and long past 
the colt age. Should Charley feel so inclined, on reaching the pas- 
ture bars he would turn round and round, and round a^ain until 
allowed to go back home, when father would give a sharp blow with 
a switch, and fully subdued, he would go down the dusty road, 
taking the turn at Spooky Hollow with never a glance at the bars; 
up the valley road bordered with smelly pine woods, where the birds 
were singing and the squirrels chirping: past the worn path that 



38 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

led to Orrie's and Noritje's log cabin, whose single room, steeped in 
tobacco smoke from their pipes, was a favorite place to visit and 
listen to the tales they had to tell; below the hill the Wilkinson 
home and scene of the Mary Catherine Lee stories: then on to the 
top of the Lousterberg, where in those days the road ran close to the 
edge of the hill and dipped down with steep grade to the lower land. 
From the top of the hill I always paused to take in the view of 
open country between it and the mountains, where the turnpike 
descended and ascended from hill to valley and from valley to hill, 
curving around rocky ledges and losing itself in another valley 
where the church spire could be seen above the trees. 

Passing the home of the Weitlaufs, with its alluring straw- 
berry patch and berry bushes, old Charley would strike into a canter 
and we were soon at the gate, where the grandfather of the house 
always greeted me with a smile. He (Barent Rouse) was a tall, 
dignified old man, deeply humorous; a fine type of an honest, up- 



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A. T. STEWART MILI. AT LEEDS, NOW DK.MOI.ISII Kl> 

right man whose influence upon the family life for all that was 
good and worth while can never be measured. Inside was the 
grandmother, still fair of face but delicate of body; a semi-invalid 
who seldom left her home. Her voice was pleasant, her manner 
mild; she demanded and received respect — a real grandmother. 

The turnpike in summer was always dusty or muddy; often in 
spring on the clay hill hub-deep with mud, the teamsters doubling 
up for successful hauling to the top. Dick Hill with his cart and 
ox-team was a familiar figure, leisurely putting on dirt or gravel 
which the next hard shower washed off. Years later a neighbor. 
Richard Phelan, planted a row of maple trees along the side and 
made a raised walk to the village. This walk was destroyed when 
the state road was built, but the maples remain. 

The stage coach and the four-seated market-wagons coming in 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— MADISON 39 



what seemed an endless line from the Day Boat, before the Mountain 
Railroad of 1882, were in summer a break in the monotony of the 
days. The wagons were loaded beyond their comfortable limit, the 
stage filled inside and out, legs dangling from the top and trunks 
tied on everywhere, a fog of dust enveloping them, and on hot 
summer days horses and passengers alike in a state of profuse per- 
spiration. Often there were wailing babies, but these difficulties in 
reaching the mountains never seemed to affect the tide of travel. 

The last of the name of Salisbury to live in the house (now 
George Y. Clement's) was General William Salisbury. He had ad- 
vanced by all the military grades from Sergeant to Major General, 
and when the affairs of his country no longer demanded his services 
he settled down to farm life. He was deacon of the church at Leeds, 
"benevolent and popular," connected with the Agricultural Society 
and did much toward "furthering improved methods of agriculture." 
Reverses came through no fault of his, unless it were the fault of too 
great faith in his friends, and he honorably gave up the home he 
loved and with his family removed to Catskill, where he died in 1883. 

After the mills closed Edwin Greene was in charge for some 
years, and Martin Keough continued as watchman. 

Many devastating fires reduced the houses of the Company, 
others were torn down and scarcely a half-dozen remain. Of these 
one stands on the hill at the extreme end of what was Factory Row, 
and an apartment house of several families is included in the St. 
George. The upper mill, the last to go, was taken down and in 1921 
the bricks removed, leaving an unsightly vacancy. 

The first mills at Leeds were grist and saw-mills of Van Bergen 
and Salisbury at the upper fall. Ira or Stephen Day had the first 
flouring mill, and after this came Day, Austin and Whittlesey, and 
in 1814 Schuneman, Person and Salisbury had grist and flour-mills. 
The mill of Day became Whittlesey's, and on the same site Samuel 
Harris erected a large woolen mill. This was burned in 1862 and 
rebuilt in '64, becoming the Waterville Manufacturing Company, 
then A. T. Stewart's. The lower one closed In 1881 and" the upper 
in 1882. Herrick Wilbur succeeded Samuel Harris as manager and 
treasurer, the latter going to Catskill. In 1837 Robert Fulton was 
miller in Henry Whittlesey's mill. Fulton was a popular man who 
often entertained a crowd at John Person's or at Whittlesey's store, 
arguing a political point. He made a successful sheriff. 

Many families connected with the mills were of the Roman 
Catholic faith, which in time necessitated a church for their con- 
venience. A lot on Green Lake avenue was purchased of Dewey 
Dederick in 1878, and a church built. With the closing of the 
mills regular service was discontinued until the increase of summer 
population made it once more desirable to have service every Sunday 
morning during the summer season, when often there is not room 
for all the worshipers, coming as they do not only from the village 
but from surrounding boarding houses. 

The first marriage recorded by Dr. Van Zandt was that of Frank 
Knoll and Huldah Harzog of Germany. Mr. Knoll was a weaver and 



40 mSTOEIC CATSKILL— MADISON 

worked in the mills for a number of years, but with an eye to the 
future spent his spare time and evenings, his wife helping him, 
wrapping cigars and learning details of the trade. Finally he set 
up a store in Catskill. 

Among the celebrities of that time and later were "Sam" and 
"Wash" June (Sam was found dead one day on the bank of the 
creek, where he had fallen from the bridge); Billy Griggs, who 
ended his days on the Connty Farm; Sally, who was often seen 
dragging wood from the island; Yawpee, Case and Abe, with their 
skinny horse and load of bean-poles, always proclaiming their return 
from town to the neighborhood by rollicking songs which echoed 
through the woods as they passed along the valley road, the words 
of the song often improvised to fit the failing of some neighbor 
swaying backward and forward, their legs dangling from the sides 
of the rude rigging, the horse often on a mad gallop. Forewarned by 
the racket, passers-by gave them the road. 




MKN jruiTH MOOKE, D.Vl (ill rKK OF DICK .AM) BKTTY 

Among the colored population was Francis Moore, and his wife 
Judith, the last the daughter of Betty and Dick, one-time slaves who 
lived at Squire Van Vechten's. She belonged to the old type whose 
parents were a part of pioneer days; was soft of speech, gentle of 
manner and much respected. Eight of her twelve children are still 
alive. Maria Moore, wife of Jacob Moore, pensioner of the Civil 
War, still lives on the Elting farm, clinging to her- home and her 
chickens. Richard Sisco, or "Dick," a G. A. R. veteran, died in 1921. 



JEFFERSON 

TPHE farm which Dirck Teunis Van Vechten purchased (1690) lay 
* along the Katskill and Kaaterskill, below and including some of 
the land which the Indians called "Castle Heights" or what is now 
Jefferson, and when he returned to his home at Greenbush with the 
news of his successful bargaining with Van Cortland for the land 
his wife asked him, as he dwelt on the advantages of the purchase: 
"Will we be alone in the wilderness?" 

" 'Twill not be o'er-crowded," he answered. "There be the 
cabin of Guysbert uyt den Bogaert, who has dwelt along the Kats- 
kill for many years. William Loveridge, a hatter of Beverwyck, has 
purchased lands at the Hop-o'-Nose, of Claus-uylen-spiegle, and five 
miles up stream are the lands and log cabin of Jan Bronck, while 
the Commander of the Fort and our nephew have large estates in 
that region. They, as you know, have not yet come hither; doubt- 
less their lands will be leased for some years to come. I fear it is 
little companionship you will have for a time." 

"Well, what matter?" replied the good vrouw; "the lads and 
lasses and household cares will keep me from idle thoughts and 




VAN VKCHTKN lAKMIIOlSK, IJIILT 16<)0 



hands, but I would that there were a few of mine own kindred near." 
Dirck Teunis had the problem of moving his family and house- 
hold goods more than thirty miles through the wilderness. How he 
solved it we do not know, probably by the slow-moving sloop down 
the Hudson, transferring them to ox-carts or floating them on flat- 
boats at high tide up the Catskill, but here where the two streams 
join watery forces they lived in peace and plenty; the Indian trail 
from Canada passing their door, the burial place of Pewasck and her 
tribe just beyond, while forests of grand old oaks, sycamores and 
chestnuts were between them and the Landing. 



42 HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

Van Vechten began at once to clear more land — for it had 
previously been occupied by Van Bremen and others — and extend 
his wheat and corn fields already under cultivation. A little grist 
and saw-mill on the Hans Vosen Kill was within the boundaries of 
his lands, and here settlers brought their grain to be ground into 
coarse flour. There was plenty of corn, wool, flax and everything 
necessary for use and comfort to be stored away in barns and out- 
buildings, the rest was sent to market by sloops which anchored in 
the Hudson at the mouth of the Katskill on their way to New 
York, by means of flat-boats floated down at high tide. The sloops, 
dependent on wind and weather, were often longer going to New 
York than it takes to-day to cross the ocean. 

Van Vechten was kept busy attending to matters on the farm 
and performing the duties of his office as Justice of the Peace of 
Albany county and that of magistrate at Katskill. "The first took 
him to Albany three times a year to attend the Common Court. He 
was also captain of the colony, and one day in the autumn of 1689 
a weary messenger with sweating horse drew rein at the door. 

"I must consult with Schuyler and oflicers of the Fort," he said 
to Jannetje as he read the letter delivered to him. "There be great 
danger from the French and Indians, and we must gather our 
forces. Tell Dick to saddle the black mare, and do you see that 
Dinah gives me a bite to eat. I must be well on my way to the Fort 
before mid-day. Johannes, you ride to Esopus with the news, that 
they may be prepared against my return; but first care for this 
messenger and his beast — he has ridden hard and both have need 
of rest." 

"The enrollment is well started," he said to Jannetje a few 
days later. "Our sons Johannes and Teunis, and Francis Salisbury 
have enrolled and will be sent to Skeensburrough. It's scant pay 
they get — two pence daily and provisions — but the country must be 
defended." 

Jannetje made no reply but was soon looking over her sto(?k of 
■woolen and hand-made socks, that husband and sons might be well 
provided for against the cold winter, and when they had passed out 
of sight there was no time wasted in idle tears. Much of the care 
of the farm would fall upon her, for Michael the eldest had married 
(1686) and lived at Raritan; Wyntje was also married (1682) : but 
Samuel was a steady lad of seventeen and upon him Jannetje relied 
greatly. 

With the winter (1690) came news of the Schenectady massacre 
and many troubles with the Indians, but spring brought Dirck and 
his sons back from the frontier, holding themselves ready to return 
at a moment's notice. As time passed without their recall they 
settled down to the routine work on the farm, and four years later 
Teunis brought home a wife, Cathlyntje Van Petten of Schenectady. 
Johannes also married, and Abraham the youngest went to live with 
his brother Michael at Raritan. Samuel had little use for woman- 
kind apart from his mother. Janse Casperus Hollenbeck of Cox- 
sackie, and Jan Baptiste DuMont of Kingston found the company of 



fflSTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 43 

Neeltje and Fytje necessary to their happiness. Of the twelve chil- 
dren three daughters had died. 

It was in 1702 that Dirck Tennis Van Vechten died and was 
carried to the knoll between his house and the Katskill, where his 
sons placed a brown headstone to mark the spot. His son Teunis 
then became captain of the colony. This same year William Love- 
ridge of the Hop-o'-Nose died. 

Teunis and Caatje remained on the farm, and five years after 
the death of his father (1707) Teunis also died. He was but 
thirty-nine years old, and the eldest of their five children was but 
twelve, while the little Teunis was an infant. The brothers of 
Teunis, sr., looked after the interests of the family and managed the 
farm. One day Samuel, one of the brothers, announced his intention 
of sailing on the next ship to Holland, to visit relatives there. 

"I have long had a desire to go hither," he said, "and the time 
seems ripe for the purpose." 

"Will you tarry long in the old country?" asked Caatje, while 
the youngsters listened with awe because of go great an undertaking. 

''That I cannot say, but doubtless some time will elapse before 
I turn homeward, for I can well be spared from the farm, but I like 
not to leave the little Teunis." 

"We will care for him well. He will be a sturdy lad when you 
return, and no more a toddler." 

"See that you do not let him forget me." 

Samuel soon set sail for New York, and two years passed before 
his return. He was a man of dignity with a firm mouth, prominent 
nose and keen but kindly eyes. While in Holland he was induced 
to have his portrait painted for the little Teunis he loved so well to 
hand down to posterity. Often the children of Caatje and his other 
nephews and nieces talked of his journey and longed for his return, 
that they might hear of the strange land of dykes and windmills, and 
the wonderful voyage across the ocean. At last a sloop dropped 
anchor at the Landing, and with his chest Uncle Samuel was low- 
ered from its side. Young Loveridge had seen the sloop and rowed 
across the Katskill in time to greet the traveler. 

"How now, neighbor? Well pleased am I to see you safely 
back from your perilous voyage. Didst have fair weather?" 

"That I did until a day's journey from New York, when it 
seemed doubtful the ship could weather the gale, and little cared I 
if she did not. It seemed better to be cast into the sea than to be 
possessed with such terrible gripings. But here I am. Is all well 
with my kindred?" 

"They be all strong and hearty. Little Teunis is a great lad." 

"Glad I be that no harm has befallen them. And now what 
shall be done with my chest? Its contents are of too much value 
to be left about for some thieving Indian." 

"Yonder comes Jan Bronck; doubtless he will turn out of his 
way to carry thee and thy chest." 

Jan Bronck was very willing to accommodate so great a traveler, 
and hear the news. Soon they were seated side by side on the 



44 HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

chest, while the ox-team slowly made the way over the rough road. 
As they came in sight of the farmhouse Samuel saw the little Teunis 
playing outside. 

"Whose big lad is this?" he said, scarcely believing it could 
be the little one he had so reluctantly left behind. 

'I be Teunis. Be you my Uncle Samuel come back from across 
the big waters?" 

By this time Caatje had come to the door, the slaves gathered 
at a respectful distance, and the other children came shyly forward. 
Old Dinah was the first to hurry to the kitchen to prepare the evening 
meal, and Caatje slipped away to see that his room was made ready. 

After supper, when they had listened eagerly to every word, the 
children were allowed to stay up long enough to see the contents 
of the big chest which Uncle Samuel opened in the living room, and 
each member of the family, even the, slaves, received some gift 
brought from Holland. Then he unrolled the portrait of himself 
which he said belonged to Teunis, and brought out a hogskin Bible 
with heavy clasps, printed in Amsterdam. Even Dirck, now grown to 
man size, was too excited for much sleep, and it was many a day be- 
fore they tired of asking questions, although often sternly reminded 
by their mother that lads and lasses should be seen but not heard. 

On Samuel's return he found the rough road or Indian trail by 
the door was being transformed into the King's Highway. It would 
reduce the difficulties of travel from New York to Albany, increase 
the number of travelers and bring them in closer touch with rela- 
tives and friends. Hospitality was the rule, and the best room al- 
ways in readiness for chance guests whom night might overtake on 
the way. 

In 1715 Samuel's brothers made over the farm to him and he 
built a dam across the Katskill, with a grist and saw-mill and a 
general store. He prospered greatly. Soon Dirck, eldest of the 
nephews under his care, began to make frequent trips to Kingston, 
and when he and Helena Suybrant were married he was given lands 
at Loonberg and along the Mohawk. Eva married Johannes Suy- 
brandt; Jannetje and Maria died, and only Teunis was left with 
his uncle to be brought up as his own son. 

In 1741 the bachelor Samuel Van Vechten died and bequeathed 
his "lands at Katskill with all the houses, out house, grist mill, 
barns, barracks, orchard, garden and so forth, to his orphaned 
nephew Teunis." He also gave him his "household goods, furniture, 
utensils and implements, namely: beds, bedding, linen, woolen, 
iron, brass, puter, wooden ware, wagons, slays, plows, harrows, 
plate, cash, money and moneys on hand or owing to me. together 
with all my personal chattels as negro slaves, male and female, 
horses, cows, sheep, swine, poultry, with all and every other part 
of my moveable and personal estate wheresoever and whatsoever, 
none excepted." 

The same was "to abide, continue and remain, the visitation of 
Almighty God in his all wise providence, only excepted, a perpetual 
state of inheritance for, and to the uses of him, the said Teunis 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 45 

Van Vechten, during his life, and after his decease, of the heir of 
his body and thence from heir to heir aforesaid, successively to the 
end of the world * * * rendering and paying therefore yearly 
and every year forever, on the 2oth of March, to his Majesty his 
heirs or successors, the quit rent due for the same, namely the 
quantity of three bushels of good winter wheat." 

1741 was what was called "the hard winter." It began in 
November and lasted until March. It is recorded in an old diary in 
Dutch, and commented upon as "mine Got it vas an awful time." 
The depth of "snow reached six feet and fires were kept burning 
night and day." 

In 174 4 war was declared between England and France, then 
came the burning of Saratoga. Four years after peace was declared, 
but the frontiers still suffered from the Indians. Teunis Van 
Vechten had news of the scalping of two relatives, and "1748 he 
received a commission as first lieutenant in a company of militia 
foot, with Casperus Bronck captain. There is no record that his 
services were needed." In the meantime he had married Judith 
Ten Broeck of Kingston. 

Eight years Teunis and Judith lived in the old house after 
their marriage, and it was greatly in need of repair. They had 
three sons at this time, and with a growing family and increasing 
number of slaves, it seemed desirable to enlarge it. Teunis had 
been prosperous, adding to the farm many acres and improving it in 
various ways. 

"Teunis," said Judith one day, "Dost not think it would be well 
to enlarge our quarters? Our neighbors' fine dwellings shame us." 

"It be little use I have for outward show," he replied, "but it 
were wise to set the masons at the big chimney or it may tumble 
on our heads in some sudden tempest, and if you so desire the 
dwelling might be added to; the walls are solid and fit for years to 
come." 

So the old home was made longer and higher as Judith desired ; 
the blue tile set around the fireplace in the best room removed. 
Much of the woodland had been cleared away; there was a fine 
orchard and the western windows looked out on vast cornfields and 
waving fields of grain with glimpses of the Katskill and Kaaterskill, 
while in the distance were rolling hills and the background of blue 
mountains. The southern windows looked out upon the garden 
which sloped downward to the "streeke" and the waters of the Kats- 
kill. On the opposite shore waterworn rocks held back the lands 
sloping upward in uneven ridges and patches of pasture. A little 
to the north was the fording place of the King's Highway, along 
which was the schoolhouse where Teunis had learned to read and 
write. From 1767 to 1771 Martin McGee taught the school and 
Teunis Van Vechten paid for his children (Teunis, Samuel, Jacob, 
Elizabeth and Abram) 4 pounds 16 shilling for two years. The 
account was balanced every two years. From June, 1771, to Decem- 
ber, 1772, John McRober was teacher. He was charged with six 
gallons of rum for two years. 



46 fflSTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

A second schoolhouse stood opposite the one of the present day. 
It was of logs and the benches were slabs, with desks on three sides 
of the room, backs to the wall. In 1907 Luke and Jacob Van 
Vechten were the only survivors of all the children who attended 
that school. 

In 1770 Teunis built a new grist and saw-mill and mill-dam, 
the last a hundred feet north of the present one, at a cost of 1000 
pounds. 

After the burning of Kingston, Jacob Ten Broeck and his wife, 
the father and mother of Judith Van Vechten, came up to the farm 
to live, and as the Indians and British raiders came up the Old 
King's Road and crossed the creek at the ford, the news of their 
approach was brought to the house. All the silverware was placed 
in the bottom of a sick-chair and Mrs. Ten Broeck sat in it. When 
the chief came in, she spoke to him and said: "Are you going to 
burn me out again as you did in Kingston?" He recognized her, and 
immediately called off his men. They all shook hands with her and 
went off. 

The sons of Teunis were sent from the little log schoolhouse to 
the Kingston Academy, and the youngest (Abraham) chose the law 
as his life work, and studied under Chancellor Lansing. "The high 
places of the Bar were filled at that time by such men as Hamilton. 
Burr, Jones and Livingston," and it has been written of Abraham 
that "he soon ranked as their equal." There was no display, no im- 
passioned speech. He was always listened to with attention and 
respect. He was venerated as a model of professional excellence. 
"He was Recorder of the city of Albany, Member of Assembly, State 
Senator, and Attorney General in turn; was twice offered a seat 
on the bench of the Supreme Court, but declined the lionor in order 
that the interests of his clients might not suffer." He was also 
"a faithful member of the Reformed Church." 

Samuel married Sara Van Orden and remained on the farm. 
Of their eleven children, two girls and two boys died young. Their 
sons also received their education at Kingston, and Jacob entered 
l^nion College, choosing the law as a profession, and it is said that 
"in the offlce of his uncle Abraham he was expected to distinguish 
himself but his mind turned toward the ministry." He studied the- 
ology under Dr. Mason, and "on the day of the battle of New 
Orleans he became the pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church of 
Schenectady," where he remained — his only charge — for thirty-four 
years, during which period "one thousand members were added to 
the church." 

A sufferer from rheumatism, in 1825 he "visited Europe for 
treatment, hoping for renewed strength," and underwent an oper- 
ation which, "through the blunder of a surgeon," made it necessary 
for him to use a cane and crutch for the rest of his life. "He bore 
the trial cheerfully and continued to preach until 1849." As a 
member of the Board of Trustees of Union College "his love and 
interest in it never flagged. After his retirement he wrote for the 
religious and secular press, conducted special services, prepared a 



HISTORIC CATSKIIL— JEFFERSON 47 

new sermon weekly, and often had feeble congregations under his 
care." His last days were "in the family of his son-in-law. Rev. 
Prof. Huntington, where he spent the evening of a beautiful life 
among his children. He was amiable, gentle, kind and affectionate, 
a lover of hospitality, full of sympathy and encouragement." He 
married Catharine, daughter of Dr. Mason, and for his second wife, 
Maria Van Dyck of Coxsaekie. 

Samuel, the brother of Jacob, started out as a merchant, but 
soon he too decided for the ministry and graduated from Rutgers, 
became pastor of the Reformed Church of Bloomingburg and Fort 
Plain. "He was an advanced thinker and believed in progress for 
church as well as state." While preaching at Fort Plain "he was 
tried by General Synod for heresy. His answer in his own defense 
was: "Brothers, you will all preach the same doctrine for which I 
am on trial before you, within twenty years, or grass will grow 
before the door of your church. You must abolish free school or 
change your doctrine. The advancement in arts, science and edu- 
cational facilities has freed men of ancient Israel. They will no 
longer follow the tenets, but to be successful the church must keep 
pace with the progress of the world in matters relating to the 
church." "He was twenty years in advance of his time, but he lived 
long enough to see his prophecy realized." 

At the death of their father, the homestead and the mill fell 
to Peter, Washington and John. The first two never married, but 
John married Eleanor Schuneman, granddaughter of the Rev. Jo- 
hannes, and their six children were born there, three of whom lived 
to grow up. The house was much the same as when Teunis enlarged 
it for his family. On the first floor of the smaller part was the 
kitchen, with its fireplace and brick oven, and in the corner next 
to the hall the bed of Caesar and Dinah. A narrow stairway led to 
the room above where Tom, Jupiter, Claes, Hans and Dick slept — 
these were the seven slaves of their father Samuel, and when the 
sons left for other homes, each, as was the custom, was given a 
slave for his own. They were freed several years before the time 
required by law, but, faithful to the family anji happy with the 
inner consciousness of freedom, were content to serve as before. 

The hall with its crooked stairway ran north and south with a 
door at either end, and near the front entrance stood a mahogany 
table with its folded over leaf on which were decanter and glasses. 
The hall served as dining room in Summer. A step up and a dooi 
opened into a living room, where, in a recess on one side of the big 
chimney, John and Eleanor slept for warmth in winter. On the 
other side was a trap door leading to the cellar, and a door opening 
into the best room, where there was a fireplace of huge proportions. 

Jannetje Van Valkenburgh, who had the care of Sarah, the 
eldest, occupied with her one of the southern rooms which opened 
into the garden; and the other, after the death of Eleanor, the 
mother, was given over to Margery DuBois and the little Peter who 
was but six months old when his mother died. A year before this 
two little daughters, Catharine Judith, and Anna Maria, had died 



48 HISTORIC CATSKIIL— JEFFERSON 

within ten days of each other. "Putrid sore throat" seems to have 
been prevalent in those days, and when it entered a family, two, 
and often three or four, were taken. 

Jannetje had been carried to Canada by Indians when quite 
small, and at fourteen, escaping from them and having learned much 
of their cunning and the ways of the wilderness, followed the trail 
along Lake Champlain and, reaching a settler's cabin, was passed 
from one cabin or settlement as the case might be to another, until, 
reaching the Hudson, she finally found her way to Van Vechten's, 
was taken in and kept for many years, for she could not trace her 
relatives. Jannetje did most of the spinning. 

The north-west room was given over to the bachelors, Peter 
and Washington, who each had his high-poster, and here was the 
only stove in the house. The stove was transferred to the best 
bedroom when William Magilton, once a year, made the family 
supply of boots and shoes. It was also used by the tailoress, Gitty 
DuBois, who made the men's clothing after they had been cut by the 
tailor. Story of Catskill. 

The long room on the south-west was the weave room, and 
here were the spinning wheel and loom. A narrow stairway in the 
middle of the upper hall led to the garret where the big swifts were 
kept, and where tradition says one Jacob hid from the Indians 
behind the chimney, his mother saying when questioned as to his 
whereabouts that "he had gone above." Above, being interpreted — 
as the mother hoped — as Albany, they left without searching the 
house. 

When Peter was five or six years old and riding a horse 
attached to a horse-rake on the flats below the house, his uncle 
Peter noticed black swirling clouds coming from the north-west at 
terrific speed. He lifted the little fellow to the ground, saying: 
"Run, Peter; run for the house; there is a bad storm coming." 
Peter's feet flew over the mown field, for he was terrified by the 
coming darkness. The wind roared through the trees as it came 
down the glen, the tops of the big elms at the sand-bank bending 
far over. Once, twice, he fell, and barely escaped running full 
speed into the duck-pond. The wind was pushing him along so fast 
he could not keep to the path. Shutters, barn-doors and every- 
thing loose about the place was banging in his ears; the frightened 
chickens, ducks and turkeys were scurrying for shelter; as he 
reached the gate old Caesar picked him up and dashed inside, and 
none too soon, for the roof blew off, the gable fell in with a crash 
and a torrent of rain followed. The house trembled with the force 
of the hurricane, and, unnoticed in the confusion. Sarah and Peter 
crouched in the corner by the fireplace. 

"Do you think it is the end of the world?" whispered Peter. 

"No, it couldn't be," answered Sarah, "you know the dominie 
said it would be burned up next time, and how could it burn in 
such a rain?" 

The stone gable was soon replaced by red bricks, and with a 
new roof the house was restored. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 



49 



John's second wife, Anna Maria Schuneman, refused to live on 
the farm and they made their home at Madison, but the little Peter 
chose to remain until it was sold after the new railroad had made 
it in the eyes of Washington and Peter an undesirable place to live. 
In 1872 the late Van Wyck Van Vechten bought the stone house 
and four acres of land from William H. Palmer. The mill was for 
years known as Cook's Mill, Rushmore's and of late as Pixley's. Mr. 
Palmer occupied the stone house for some time, and then built the 
brick one opposite. 




MARKINM; fording PLACK AI.ONO SN.\KK ItOAI) 



The fording place on the Old King's Road was a treachei-ous 
one, and when the water was high some lives were lost by a too- 
venturesome spirit, but even after 1802, when a draw-bridge was 
built at the village and the road practically closed, it was much 
used to avoid the toll. Peter accumulated many pennies by open- 
ing gates for passers-by. One night in the days before the bridge 
was built, a young man and his wife were about to attempt the 
crossing, but the water was high and Van Vechten persuaded them 
to stay at the farm until conditions were more favorable. On leav- 
ing, their host having refused compensation, they insisted on giving 
him a gold ring as a remembrance. The stone was an oblong 



50 HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

square surrounded by pearls, and is carefully kept to-day by Mrs. 
Knox of New York, one of his descendants. 

It was in 1831 that a Mrs. Wolven, her son and the young 
lady to whom he was engaged, driving past Reuben Palmer's were 
warned the creek was too high for safe fording, but Mrs. Wolven 
replied that they "could do it," and she "wasn't going to pay fifty 
cents to drive over the bridge." Her son protested but she insisted, 
and the outfit was carried away by the swift current. The mother 
reached shore, and the son caught hold of a stump, but left it to 
rescue the girl, and was drowned with her. His body was found 
next day, but that of the girl was not recovered for several weeks. 
Peter was out fishing in a boat with Thomas Jackson and Cornelius 
Benham when one of them discovered the body of the girl and .towed 
it ashore. Peter did not wait for a closer view, but ran for the 
house and for months could not be persuaded to go near the stream. 

Teunis married Rachel Kiersted and lived in a tall wooden 
house near what is now the Grant House entrance. Here four 
children were born; Sarah, who became the wife of Peter Simmons 
and kept a store on the corner; Luke K., who settled on the toll-gate 
farm near Madison; .Jacob, who went west, became a Wisconsin 
pioneer (the first white man in that part of the state), married 
Elizabeth Bancroft and spent his life there; Samuel who died at 
the age of six years. 

The old log schoolhouse was still in use when the children of 
Teunis were young, but later a new one was built across from the 
other, and to this one Nancy Strong of Durham came to teach. One 
day a neighbor, Kate Kenyon, said to Luke, "I have found a wife 
for you." 

"You have?" he replied; "then you are a smart woman. Who 
is she?" 

"The new school teacher," was the reply. "She is just the one 
for you." 

"All right," was the ciuick reply; "then I'll marry her." And 
he did. 

The Kenyons lived just below Van Vechten's (where Mrs. 
Kranz now lives). .John, who was lame, had two wives, daughters 
of William Schuneman. William afterward became a Judge and 
Congressman for Ulster county. Cornelia married Wallace Warner, 
Catskill merchant. 

The plateau above the farm of Dirck Teunis was early known 
as Jefferson. In the time of the Indians there was a fort on the 
southwestern side, its stockade probably extending down to the 
unfailing spring along the Snake Road, and Jefferson was known 
as "Castle Heights" ("Casteel Hoogte," the Dutch called it). From 
the fort ran a foot-path across the plain to the foot of the Kaleberg, 
along what is now Brooks Lane, and followed the hills to Coxsackie. 
The sandy flat lands which compose the fertile flats of Jefferson did 
not appeal to the early settler, and "some portion was later given 
away as not worth fencing." 

It was here the men of old Catskill had their race track, and on 



fflSTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 51 

Saturday afternoons even the dominie watched the good-natured 
rivalry of the Dutchmen as they put their fastest horses to the test, 
indulged in considerable betting and some drinking, although in- 
toxication was the exception. In 1796 two horses. Rabbit and White 
Stocking, ran for $200. 

In 1775 Henry Oothoudt, who had married Neeltje Van Bergen, 
built a house at the foot of the limestone hills (Brooks farm). He 
was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1790, and later treas- 
urer of the Catskill Horse Stealing Association. He was "an anti- 
federalist and as a member of the Convention voted against the first 
Constitution." In 1793 his wife died, and eight years later he also 
passed on, having been for a year before his death of unsound mind 
and "often fell a-weeping." They left a daughter, Catharine, who 
married first John Demarest, by whom she had two children, Henry 
Oothoudt and Nelly. Her second husband was David Bancroft. By 
her father's will she received an annuity of "80 pounds and her 
choice of a negro wench slave, the rest and residue" to her children 
— Henry 0. "to receive a liberal education" and Xelly "a proper 
and suitable one." Nelly married Peter Gebhardt. 

After Henry Oothoudt's death his daughter Catharine was 
accused of "fraudulently securing from her father while of unsound 
mind" a deed for the farm "purchased of John Person," for her son 
John Demarest Bancroft, who was probably born after the will was 
made. Whether the accusation was proved, history saith not. 

On the same road where Henry Oothoudt lived and which runs 
close to the protecting hills lived Peter Wey (1783); afterward 
the Magiltons and still later Walter Palmatier. 

Before 1797 John Souser had a tavern (now McLaughlin's). 
It was a popular place and many political and town meetings were 
held there. Near this tavern was the race track, and the bend in 
the road at that place is attributed to the tavern. Barent Staats 
Salisbury of military fame lived at the top of the hill, and there 
was a tavern called Union Hall on the "square," belonging to 
William Schuneman. Christopher Whipple and John Pollock were 
residents, and later Peter Bortle and John Merrifield were inn- 
keepers opposite William Schuneman's. In 1805 John Souser died, 
"an old and respected resident of the town." In later years this was 
the Jennings home. 

It was at Jefferson, after the death of Martin Van Bergen, 
on lands given his wife Anna Maria (by Vap Bergen) that Rev. 
Johannes Schuneman built (about 1792) a home for himself, but con- 
tinued to preach in the church at old Catskill. 

"It is best that we should have a home of our own against the 
time when you shall be too old to minister to the flock, for we 
are both far along in years." Mistress Schuneman had said to the 
good man. 

"Well spoken, mine vrouw; I have had such a plan in mind 
for some time. There is a fair spot on the hill above the stream 
called the Vosen Kill, on the lands at Jefferson which your father 
left us. We might well be content to spend our days there. The 



52 HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

pastures have no lack of water, the land can be easily tilled, and 
the "Het strand," fast growing into a village of considerable size, 
is not far distant. It is little likely I will be able to preach for 
long, and if you so desire we will see the masons at once." 

The house was built of bricks after the manner of the Van 
Bergens — long and roomy, with porch on either side, and they left 
their parsonage home among the hills at old Catskill to enjoy it 
together but a short time, for on a Sunday morning in May, (1794) 
he spoke to his flock from the words. "It is finished," and six days 
later in the stillness of evening he passed away. Two years later 
his wife followed him. To-day you can see the two brown head- 
stones in the center of the Jefferson Rural Cemetery, of which 
these were the beginning when it was "but a field." 

"His funeral was a great event." Rum, whiskey and wine 
were common drinks and always kept on a table in the hallway, and, 
as was the custom when a great man died, rum was served "before 
and after the funeral, and on returning from the grave," when the 
virtues of the dead were dwelt upon as they "sipped the beverage- or 
smoked long-stemmed pipes" which with tobacco were provided for 
the occasion. 

Johannes — or John as he called himself in later years — was of 
German parentage, his father (Hermann Schuneman of Hamburgh, 
who came to this country in 1709) became captain of the Palatines 
at East Camp, and there married a daughter of George Muller, also 
of Hamburg. 

Rev. David Murdock, who wrote the "Dutch Dominie of the 
Catskills," describes him as "a man of large and wide infiuence in' 
his time. * * * of his ancestors he was one who would not 
boast, and when his wife, who rather looked up to the aristocracy, 
would begin to trace back he would curtly say, "The less of that 
Maria, the better. My name is Schuneman, and you are Dutch 
enough to know that is skinner, another name for plain butcher; 
a Yankee would call it skinflint." 

"Trained in Calvanistic theology, which renders men firm in 
principle, drinking in the love of liberty for which Holland has 
been famous, and believing in the Presbyterian order of church 
government which calls no man master, he was prepared to pray 
and fight against the devil and the king. His ardent temperament 
made him a fierce foe and a firm friend, while his superior learning 
raised him above all the laymen in the region, and his office gave 
him power he was not slack to use on his own responsibility." 

His wife was a large and gallant looking woman, with a chin 
that defied all competition, and her speech was authority, not ex- 
cepting the dominie himself. She sat high like a queen, of fine 
rounded form, her complexion of pure pink and white, too masculine 
to be motherly, and was more likely to be feared than loved by the 
people of the parish. Her husband addressed her as "y'vrouw." 

The dominie was not free from slander during his lifetime, in 
spite of the dignity of his oflfice and his reputation as a godly man. 
The year before his death, in the Catskill Packet appears a 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 53 

public letter in which one T V W writes, "Whereas, 

a malicious and scandalous report has sometime since been circu- 
lated by John Schuneman of Catskill that the subscriber had been 
executed in Massachusetts Bay for the heinous crime of the murder 
and robbery of a collector on his way to Boston. Being fully con- 
vinced said report was only intended to injure me in my reputation, 
and industriously propagated without the least foundation in truth, 
I take this method to inform the Rev. John Schuneman (if he de- 
serves such an appellation) that he is as notorious a liar as the 
report is false." 

The dominie replies to this, "I peremptorily deny that I ever 
circulated any such report or have had any intention to injure the 

reputation of said V W , but I would have wished that 

he had acted more prudent and investigated the fact before he, in 
so public a manner, had charged me as a notorious liar. What can 
or may be the intention of the said V W to have pub- 
lished the charge in the name aforesaid I must leave to himself and 
the public to judge, especially to those who are acquainted with 

me and my character and the character of the said V W . 

It would be against my profession, and it is against my inclination, 
to revile to do evil because my fellow mortal has done so first." 

At the first appearance of the accusing letter there was great 
excitement at Madison. John Person came into Martin Schune- 
man's tavern stamping the snow from his feet and settling himself 
comfortably in front of the fireplace. "Have you seen the Packet, 
Martin?" he said. ' "Not yet," was the reply. "What's the news?" 

"Why, some rascal by the name of V W has shame- 
fully accused your father of 'circulating scandalous reports' in 

regard to V W 's having been executed for murder in 

Massachusetts Bay. He calls the dominie a notorious liar." 

"That must be Teunis. He has no reputation to lose; and 
besides, if he is alive what need to prove he has not been executed." 

"It is a shameful letter. Here, read it yourself?" 

"Read it aloud. Schuneman," demanded several other inter- 
ested listeners. 

"It is a case of mistaken identity," said Martin. A man by 
that name was executed in Massachusetts Bay and no doubt my 
father has commented on the fact, but he is too well known about 
here for the letter to have much weight. However, if there is any- 
thing more of the kind I will have something to say." 

The Packet's arrival was eagerly awaited each week, the domi- 
nie's reply noted, and much indignation when V W in 

another communication accused Schuneman of not being able to 
read or write English, refusing to admit the dominie's explanation 
and abusing him without mercy. Not receiving any reply, he again 
accuses him of being a willful liar and threatens him with "a legal 
tribunal." 

"It is high time I put in a word," said Martin to his indignant 
neighbors. "The man is beneath my notice, but for the sake of the 
church I will show his character to the people." 



54 HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 

Martin's reply to V W was an explanation of mis- 
taken identity with a man of the same name, and then he proceeded 
to show that the slanderer "has no character to lose, " ending with 
these words, "I could enumerate many more of your base deeds, 
but the above are sufficient to convince every discerning person of 
your character; and I stand ready to prove what I asserted when 
called upon in a legal way. If you see fit to publish any more 
notorious falsehoods, I shall take no further notice of you." 

V W had the last word or words, for the following 

week he takes up a space of a column and a half in which "liar" 
often comes to the front. Here the controversy ends, and one won- 
ders why, when the man was so very much alive and in evidence, 
he should be at so much pains to prove it. 

Wilhelmus or "William Schuneman, known as "the Bible man," 
son of the dominie, lived at Jefferson for many years and in 1839 
built a brick house on William street, Catskill, dying there in 1851. 
It is said of him, "His doors were always open to the ministers of 
the Reformed Church. It was his delight to spend the day or even- 
ing seated before a blazing wood fire with his ministerial guest, 
each supplied with a long-stemmed pipe, discussing theology, fore- 
ordination, predestination and the decisions of the last session of 
Classis or Synod, both of which he always attended. The discussions 
were in the Dutch language, if his guest was familiar with it, but 
he did not lack for arguments if English was used." 

Catherine, the only daughter of Dominie Schuneman, married 
Jacob Goetchius, who was the son of Johannes Goetchius, a native 
of Switzerland and emigrated to America in 1728, became pastor of 
the Reformed Church at Jamaica, L. I., Hackensack and Schralen- 
burg. His first wife and mother of Jacob was Rachel Sobieski 
(Zabriskie), a lineal descendant of John Sobieski III. 

The name Goetchius is well known in Jefferson and one of the 
descendants (George Goetchius) is still living there, while on Sum- 
mit Hill lived for many years Peter Martin Goetchius and Sarah his 
wife. 

A traveler says of Jefferson, "We passed through the village of 
Jefferson, an unfortunate name, enough to blast the crops upon the 
plain and drive the owls from the neighborhood. The Devil must 
have stood god-father at the christening. There are about twenty 
houses in this unfortunate village; of these, as might be expected 
from the name, about a quarter are taverns." 

In 1819 the ravine on the southwest was made by the little 
stream that ran down to the lowland becoming a torrent during 
what was long known as the "big shower." "A chasm 125 feet 
wide, 100 feet in depth and 50 rods long" was made. "It rained 
five hours and the shower extended six miles square." 

Abram Simmons lived at Jefferson for many years. "He was an 
amiable, quiet, unobtrusive man," who loved his church, taking his 
neighbors and his family every Sunday to the church at Leeds. The 
Palmatiers, who succeeded Peter Wey under the Kaleberg, were of 
French ancestry. Jean settled in Albany and his second son Peter, 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 55 

who was born there, purchased the land east of the Kaleberg. One 
of his sons, Walter, made his home there, married Jane, a daughter 
of William Magilton, and afterward removed to Catskill. Abel was 
a Baptist clergyman. John married Angelica Salisbury and lived 
in Sandy Plains. Moses married Christina Salisbury and later was 
an elder in the Leeds church. His second wife was Nancy Puffer, 
the mother of Mrs. Cora Whitbeck.of Catskill. 

The last General Training Day was held on the farm of A. P. 
Jones. All able-bodied men were obliged to belong to the militia 
and this day was a holiday for all. It was attended by the families 
of the men, who brought their lunch and made a day of it. 

In 1872 the Jefferson Rural Cemetery Association was organ- 
ized. It was probably set apart as a burial place by William Schune- 
man and Henry Oothoudt, for it is said to have been "but a field" 
when Dominie Schuneman was buried there in 1794. Before 1872 
Matthew Jackson and David Davenport gave additional ground, a 
picket fence was built by subscription and the help of John Kenyon, 
and a hedge of evergreens planted inside the fence. Then it was 
decided to put its upkeep on a business basis. Secretary S. Gros- 
venor Austin has recorded that "we do not propose to make an 
elaborate flower garden or park but a peaceful resting place for the 
bodies of our dead, and also to give to the living the assurance that 
when they are called to lay down the burdens and cares of this 
mortal life their remains will have perpetual care which will be 
altogether satisfactory because given by loving friends. This is the 
home of our dead and will always be cared for by the family re- 
maining — that is, the Association." Sydney Castle was for many 
years the caretaker and always brought personal interest, care and 
common sense to the work. 

Just off the highway at the foot of Salisbury Hill is an old road 
up and down which all those having business at "Hope Mill," as it 
was called, used to travel. It is a steep and rocky way, frequently 
narrowed to a path by landslides, but all along it one is rewarded 
by vistas of stream, valley and cliff. Once it was a good road over 
which many tons of rags and paper were drawn. At the foot is the 
ruin of a paper-mill — in 1800 that of Nathan Benjamin. Two 
houses are still standing and there are traces of a third, remains of 
what was once a flourishing industry. When the dam was up a 
beautiful sheet of water spread from shore to shore, with a wooded 
island, beyond which was water, black and deep, called "Still Pond." 

Over the mill-pond and valley Eagle Rock still stands guard, 
a grim sentinel. The railroads of 1838 and '82 found footing along 
the banks of the Catskill which has furrowed a channel and washed 
bare the rocky palisades along its course, and here the boys of '38 
after stealing rides used to jump off and help push the feeble engine. 

The paper-mill was burned in 1807 (rebuilt the next year) and 
only some damaged paper, two press-screws and two tons of rags 
were saved. The fire company came up from Catskill, but too late 
to be of use. In consequence of this fire Nathan Benjamin was 
obliged to sell his "coachee, sleighs, harness and horses." The mill 



56 HISTORIC CATSKILIr— JEFFERSON 

was rebuilt by Abner and Russel Austin, who in 1816 dissolved part- 
nership and the business was continued by Abner, whose warehouse 
and store stood at the foot of Salisbury Hill and now forms the home 
of Carlton Austin. The Austin family came to Jefferson in 1813. 

About eighty years ago the father of Giles Sutton kept a hotel 
at the top of Haight's or Jefferson Hill. It was the only building in 
that vicinity. Often the hills were covered with cattle which were 
taken to the slaughter-house at The Point, where there were four 
beds, as they were called, and four beeves were killed at a time, one 
man knocking them in the head, others following to finish the job. 
The meat was shipped to market by sloops. Cold storage cars by 
which meat was shipped from the west put an end to this industry in 
Catskill. The rooms at the hotel were large, with four or five beds 
in each. Many drovers and men with butter and other products of 
the farm put up there while waiting for the boats to come in. Often 
the beds were full, while on the fioor of the bar room and in the 
barns men were stretched out on blankets. It cost a shilling a 
meal for patrons. A thousand sheep in a drove was a common sight; 
often there were many more. Mr. Sutton remembered Judge Cook 
as wearing knee-breeches and silver buckles on his shoes. Bill Cook 
had two deer, who with uplifted head would watch the train go by. 
ready to wheel and bound across the flats should the strange animal 
turn in their direction. 

In 1866 the ''Catskill Agricultural and Historical Society" was 
formed with Addison P. Jones as president. 15 acres were purchased 
of John B. Foote and a half-mile track laid out, buildings put up and 
the first fair held in 1867 — the last in 1874, "when interest began to 
decline." Theodore A. Cole and Edgar Russell were secretaries, and 
Jacob H. Meech was marshal; J. H. Bagley, jr., was treasurer 
throughout its existence. Jones & Bagley were associated in the 
grocery business at what is now Smith's grocery; the former be- 
came Senator, the latter Congressman, and they were prominent in 
the political field. P. "V. R. Timmerman, clerk in the Jones & Bagley 
store, went into business for himself in 1884. 

When quite young I went with my older sister to a private 
school kept by Gertrude DuBois, afterward the wife of Frank Salis- 
bury, in a room over the woodshed of her mother's home in Jefferson, 
a house with gable end to the road, an open porch with benches on 
either side, but a few feet from the white paling fence. A narrow 
path bordered with rockets and sweet Williams led to the woodshed. 
It was a long and dusty walk from the toll-gate farm. Our nearest 
neighbor on the south lived a half-mile away past Spooky Hollow, 
where my footsteps always quickened unless supported by numbers. 
On the top of the hill was a brown mile-stone, "3 miles to Catskill." 
The farmhouse of our neighbor was built against the hillside, with a 
double-decked piazza and standing cat-cornered with the road. 
There were weeping willows at the gate, tall lilac bushes screening 
the lawn from the road, a black walnut tree by the well, and a 
driveway close to the steps leading to the barns. Inside a winding 
stairway, pleasant homelike rooms, and the busy life of a larger 



fflSTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 



57 



family. There was the English grandfather of whom memory re- 
calls only a pleasant-faced, gray-haired man, seated in his arm- 
chair with cane by his side, and the rumbling of the carriages on 
the driveway as he is carried to his last resting place. The mistress 
of the house was a tall dignified woman, but gentle and sympathetic 
always. The master's place, to me was filled only by a picture on the 
wall which the children called father. Above stairs was Aunt Lidy, 
fair-haired and delicate, who spent much time upon her couch; 
Aunt Mary, of whom we were the least bit afraid but who had a 
kindly heart; there was Joe, the eldest son, a jolly good fellow who 
took upon himself many of the cares of a fatherless family; Frances, 
the eldest daughter, representing all that was good and proper in our 
sight; Matilda, always appreciating the funny side of life; and 
the youngest son, who longed for the time when he should be a 
full-fledged physician and dissect his fellow-man, but who follows 
the less painful calling of an Episcopal clergyman. 




TOLL G.4TE FARM, SUSQUEHANNA TURNPIKE 



Then there was my companion and playmate. One day we 
sailed our boats in the little stream that ran through the farm, and 
planned to come again to-morrow, but that to-morrow never came, 
for when I saw Agnes again it was in a darkened upper room where 
she lay white and still, unlike the playmate I knew, while the self- 
controlled mother stands by with quivering lip, for she knows the 
end is near. I go down the winding stairway and out into the sun- 
shine and wonder how such things can be. After this the youngest 
daughter is my playmate, and it was she who helped me empty my 
mother's camphor-bottle by taking mouthsful of the fiery stuff and 
with the well for a goal see which could hold it longest in her mouth. 
The wonder is we lived to tell the tale, for with each mouthful the 
remains of the liquid was washed down with water. 

There was another family below the toll-gate, with eight chil- 



58 HISTORIC CATSKILI^JEFFERSON 

dren, cousins of the first, where we often stopped on our way to 
Austin's mill-pond, where we skated, the younger ones joining in 
the sport. We used to go from there across the field down by the 
cave to the paper-mill, returning by the steep and rocky road which 
terminates on the state road by what was the Austin house, almost 
afraid to ask permission to warm our feet at the kitchen stove be- 
cause of the scoured whiteness of the floor and the spick and span 
neatness of everything about the house. If the Austin girls, as they 
were called, ever felt dismayed as they saw our muddy overshoes, 
they did not protest beyond a mild request to wipe our feet outside 
the door. The fancy skating of the Priest boys who lived in the 
Glen was our great admiration, for they were unusually skillful 
skaters. Sometimes we skated on Magilton's Pond. 

There was the modest brown house of Walter Palmatier set 
close to the Kaleberg and reached by a road from Jefferson along its 
base or by a short cut over the hill. The road led over a small 
bridge, overshadowed by a big tree to the (in summer) vine-covered 
porch, where, no matter how untimely your visit might be, you were 
sure of a smiling welcome. Of no other home are there such rich 
memories of self-forgetting hospitality. 

Aunt Sarah Simmons lived in the former home of Abram Sim- 
mons on one corner of the square (burned down in 1913), shaded 
by horse chestnut trees, an old-fashioned knocker on the door, an'^' 
always flowers and plants in the window. Of Uncle Peter I have 
only the faintest remembrance. To spend a day at Aunt Sarah's 
was one of the joys of life. I can hear the rattle of the knocker as 
the front door closed behind me, and see the pleasant living room 
where the members of the family gathered, the table piled with 
papers and books, of which there was always a-plenty; the bent 
form of Aunt Sarah in her low chair behind the stove, mending the 
numerous socks of the five boys, her hair combed smoothly down at 
each side of her sweetly patient face, ending in a curl behind eacb 
ear. It is not because of words she is fondly remembered, becau-^ 
they were few. She was just a home-loving woman doing her duty 
to her eight children without thought of reward. The eldest, Samuel 
had stepped into the father's place — quiet, well-read and capable; a 
man of sympathy and considerable humor but not over strong. In 
the kitchen or on the back porch was always a pet squirrel, r 
tame robin in a cage. 

Occasionally we visited the home of William Salisbury, the 
genial elderly man we called "Uncle Bill;" his good wife, and Aunt 
Delia Allen of bright personality, a patient sufferer from rheuma- 
tism. Then there were the Stevenses and "Granny Simmons," the 
Warners, Comforts and Jacobies, the Pratts, Jenningses and Aus- 
tins. The yearly visit of Aunt Gitty DuBois, the tailoress, was 
looked forward to with delight, for she had an unfailing fund of 
stories. 

The house of A. C. Fancher, one of the oldest still standing in 
Jefferson, was built in 1814 by Joseph Allen, a retired sea captain, 
and afterward owned by William Pullman, an Englishman. For 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— JEFFERSON 



59 



thirty years it was the Jackson farm; then for short periods that of 
Seymour Winans and Captain Banks, and finally became known as 
the Robb house. 

Thomas Jackson lived above the Salisbury House. He had a 
large family and at one time was commissioner of highways, and 
well known in the town. Where the late Salmon J. Mott lived for a 
number of years after removing from Leeds, was the toll-gate. Of 
those who have passed on in later years it was said of George 
Stevens, assistant editor of The Recorder and holding various posi- 
tions of trust, "He was a man implicitly trusted in any position," -a 




HAIGHT AND ALLEN HOUSE (NOW DAVIS) 

man "whose life was squared by the Golden Rule." His younger 
brother, Frederick, who remained on the farm, was one of the de- 
pendable citizens of Jefferson, and at his death mourned by a large 
circle of friends. 

The Grant House keeps in memory A. J. Grant, under his and 
the Cornell's management known far and near as a first-class sum- 
mer hotel, and for the beauty of its outlook. William Rider came to 
Jefferson from South Cairo and purchased the Babcock farm opposite 
A. P. Jones; later came the Pratts and Johnsons from Durham. 
Franklin Salisbury and his wife Gertrude DuBois lived at one time 
in the square house on his father's farm known as the "cheese-bov 
He was the genial good-hearted friend of all, long to be remembered. 

The name Jefferson, in spite of the traveler's pessimistic views, 
has not blasted the place, which has grown to be a suburban village 
of considerable beauty minus the taverns. Its despised sandy lands 
yield abundantly, and a florist's home and business add to its attrac- 
tiveness. 



THE LANOING^ OR CATSKILL 

AT the mouth of the Catskill, along DuBois Creek, when Hudson 
^* sailed up the river in 1609 was an Indian village, and the 
crew of the Half Moon was greeted by them with gifts of corn and 
squashes. The Long Dock did not then exist. Its eastern end was 
an island called Wanatonka, and excepting for the Indian village 
and their corn lands all was a wilderness. At the first bend of the 
little creek "is a mound said to have been the place where the arrow- 
heads and rude implements of agriculture of the Indians were fash- 
ioned into shapes," and on the opposite side of the Catskill and at 
Hop-o'-Nose were their burial places. "In the time of Isaac DuBois 
his slaves were buried at the latter place." 

The flat lands were tilled by the squaws, and the waters of the 
Hudson and the Catskill with the forest beyond furnished abundance 
of fish and game. "These Indians were friends of the English" and 
did not enter into the wars of the Esopus Indians against the Dutch, 
because, it is said, "of an ancient treaty which was kept by both 
Indians and Dutch." They "paid tribute to the Iroquois." 

Most of the Dutch pioneers in their search for vast estates 
passed by the Landing, which had all the advantages for a thriving 
village, set cornerwise between the Hudson and the Catskill, with 
the Hans Vosen Kill for good measure, but a few scattered settlers 
as early as 1651 made their homes there. Before this date one 
Uylen Spiegel lived for a time at the Hop-o'-Nose and left behind 
the names of Uylen-Spiegel's Kill, Uylen-Vly and Uylen-Hoek. 

One Van Bronswyck (1651) "built a house one story high of 
timbers, with a huge stone chimney, and thatched with rushes, 
along the Catskill on the west; and about 1657 Jan Anderson, An- 
driesen, or Andreas de Yersman — Catskill's first Irishman — dealer 
in beer and spirits, lived there. Van Bronswyck died and Anderson 
married his widow. Three years later Anderson sold out to Eldert 
Gerbertsen Cruyf, "dealer in strong Albany ale," a sawyer by trade. 
He had a fine orchard and is also credited with a bull, fourteen 
cows, heifers and oxen; and (1663) "did good service in keeping 
the Indians quiet." He was known as "Eldert the thrower," fr>r he 
could cast a stone a distance of a hundred yards. Falling int'- debt, 
his lands after passing through several hands finally came into the 
possession of William Loveridge, a hatter of Beverwyck. Andriesen 
(1664) was killed by Indians at Claverack, and his house burned. 
No trace of his wife and a negro slave was found. 

William Loveridge (1682) added to his estate six thousand 
acres purchased of the Esopus Indians, of whom there were eight. 
Mahak-niminaw the sachem was away at the time, but was to 
receive two pieces of duffel and six cans of rum on his return. The 
older Loveridge died before the patent was granted, and it was 
given to his son William (1685), who lived along the Uylen Kill 
until his death in 1702. After the death of his wife it was divided 
among his five children: William, Waldron, Hannah, who married 
Gysbert Lane, Margaret, wife of Alexander McDowell, and Tem- 
perance, wife of William Van Orden. 

Probably Alexander McDowell and his wife Margaret Loveridge 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 61 

occupied the house at the Hop-o'-Nose, known as Lot No. 1, until 
it was purchased by Salmon DuBois in 1720. Nine years later, 
Benjamin the son of Salmon purchased Lot No. 2, of five hundred 
acres, of Gysbert Lane and Hannah Loveridge. 

The price paid to the Indians (1684) for the land on the east 
or north side of the Catskill from "Boomptjes Hoek" to the little 
stream at the foot of the long hill known as "the Hans Vosen Kill" 
("John Fox's Creek) was one gun, two shirts, one kettle, two kegs 
of beer and a little rum. The buyer was Guysbert uyt den Bogaert 
(in plain English, Egbert Bogardus) who lived for twenty years in 
a house of logs thatched with rushes, near the Catskill, said to 
have stood back of Wm. L. DuBois's drug store. 

Hans Vos, for whom the stream was named, lived in 1654 in a 
log cabin near the creek and was employed in killing game for the 
colonists. He was summoned to Fort Orange, fined five hundred 
guilders, and banished for three years, for selling rum to the Indians. 
He escaped from jail and on petition of himself and wife was after- 
ward released from serving his sentence. His crime could not have 
been taken too seriously, for in 1661 he was appointed court mes- 
senger and deputy sheriff. 

Bogart conveyed his land to his son-in-law, Helmer Janse, who 
left no heirs and his estate went to the province. 

In 1741 it was agreed by John Lindsey of Cherry Valley and 
five men of whom "George Clarke, Lieut. Governor, was one," then 
owners of the tract, that a ''road 66 feet wide should be laid out 
from the Hans Vosen Kill to the mouth of the Catskill." This road 
(Main street) was not laid out until 1773. It was near the creek, 
and according to the late Henry O. Limbrick the "road passed from 
the river along the old Stone .Jug, then on to the Abeel house (where 
the Armory now stands), passing the Bogardus house back of Smith's 
Hotel, then on to the Meggs house, and from there as now. At the 
foot of Main street was a steep hill. 

On the other side of the road was a hill as yet uncleared of 
trees, with small game of various kinds among the rocks and bushes. 
Thomson and Greene streets were wood-roads. At this time (1773) 
Johannes Van Gorden lived at the end of the road or Femmen Hoek. 

In 1728 the name of DuBois came to the front at the Landing 
and old Catskill, although in 16 60 it was known at Hurley and 
Esopus, firmly impressed on the minds of the settlers for many miles 
around, as the news was carried from home to home along the Hud- 
son that the Indians (1663) had burned Hurley and carried the 
wife and three children of one Louis DuBois captive into the wilder- 
ness. 

Way back in the middle ages they had been a family of nobility 
in Normandy. "Geoffrey DuBois, a Knight Banneret under William 
the Conqueror," and following him "seventeen of the line were 
designated as seigneurs and chevaliers." Chretien (Christian) of 
Wickers in the Department of Artois, Flanders, which became a 
portion of France, had two sons, Jacques and Louis. "Louis married 
Catherine Blansham of Germany." This was the Louis of Hurley, 



62 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

the first elder of the Reformed Church at New Paltz, established 
1683, and it was his grandson, Benjamin DuBois, who settled at 
Catskill on the Loveridge patent, having married (1721) Catherine 
Suylandt. 

Benjamin DuBois and his family lived the simple life on the 
estate of 2,500 acres at the foot of a sunny hillside, where through 
swampy lands between them and the Hudson the Uylen Kill wound 
its way in graceful curves of smoothly flowing waters, while beyond 
the river lapped lazily along with now and then the white sails of 
some bird-like sloop to be seen, or the infrequent canoe of the Indian 
cut the waters as its skilled occupant pulled swiftly by, drew up at 
the "canoe place" or paddled up the Catskill to trade with the white 
men. In winter the river was a frozen desert over which the "post" 
carried the mail from New York to Albany at irregular intervals. 

DuBois was a man of piety and became one of the founders 
and elders of the church at old Catskill, and assisted in building 
the Kaatsban Church, on which his initials, cut in the stone, can 
be seen to-day. At his death he was buried with great ceremony, 
like a gentleman. Isaac, his second son, became owner of the home- 
stead at The Point, which in turn descended to his son John, who 
was four times married, the fourth wife, Catherine DuBois, by this 
marriage returning to the house of her birth, which her father Hu- 
bartus had exchanged with his brother Isaac. Catherine had been 
married twice before she became John's fourth wife and resumed 
her maiden name, and is said to have lived happily with her hus- 
band twenty-three years. 

This John was no ordinary man. "Of indomitable will and 
courage, leader in the community, ruler in his family, his opinions 
and acts were always respected as founded on wisdom and justice. 
He was stern in demeanor and uncompromising, and none ever ques- 
tioned or disputed his decisions." He lived in more style than his 
Dutch neighbors; is said "to have been tall in stature (over six 
feet), well proportioned and strongly built, impressive and com- 
manding. He wore to the last knee-buckles, tight stockings and low 
shoes, the garb of a gentleman." Another John took his place, who 
married Rebecca Overbaugh — the parents of Frederick N., the well- 
known benefactor of the Catskill of to-day. 

The early history of Frederick N. DuBois reads like a romance. 
He led a life of varied and exciting experiences in the gold and 
silver mines of the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere; was an "or- 
ganizer and inventor," and finally returned to New York, where he 
perfected the valuable invention known as the DuBois Seamless 
Drawn Lead Trap, now generally in use. In 1851 he married Helen 
A. Riley of Canada, and in 1891 acquired the old homestead. His 
name stood for honesty and straightforward business methods. 

In 1763 there was great excitement at the Landing. John 
Dies, English born, who had married Jane Goelet of New York, 
"daughter of a sworn translator of Dutch," was building a dwelling 
along the north bank of the Catskill near its mouth — a dwelling 
which to the more prudent Dutchmen seemed the limit of foolish- 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 



63 



ness. Rumor had it that Dies was a major in the British army, a 
deserter, and Catskill being sufficiently far away from New York to 
make it a comparatively safe refuge, he had chosen this beautiful 
spot for a home. Another rumor was that he was captain of a 
barque which made numerous journeys to the West Indies for cocoa- 
nuts, oranges and rum, but tradition insists that he fled to the 
garret whenever troops camped on the King's Road, or when trans- 
ports dropped anchor off Boomptje's Hoek, where his wife carried 
his food to him and carefully locked the door behind her. The house 
was 55 feet by 45 feet, built of sandstone with corners of freestone 
brought from Nyack; its roof like the Hancock house in Boston. A 




•OLD STONE jrO" OR MANSION OF MADAM DIES 



huge chimney stood in the center, and around the fireplace in the 
southwestern room was Dutch tile representing scenes from the 
scriptures, one of which pictured Lazarus coming out of a tomb 
waving a Dutch flag. 

The highway was near the door. Behind the house was a fine 
orchard, for which all the early settlers seem to have been noted, 
and five acres were laid out and beautified in a way which the 
Dutchmen considered a waste of time, money and good land, and 
they dubbed the whole "Dies' Folly." The Catskill ran before the 
door, its wooded shores untouched by man, with great oaks and 
maples on the opposite bank spreading their arms over the water 
and making dark, cool recesses; secluded spots where the deer and 
other wild animals came down to drink. The wrinkled nose of a 



64 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

promitory nosing far out into deep water was washed by the tide, 
which, receding, left a pebbly beach on either side. 

Jane Goelet Dies, the mistress, was held in respect by the 
vrouws of that region, who always called her "madam," for she 
could "read and write English well," which was a rare accomplish- 
ment in those days. In October, 1777, she "genteely entertained 
General Warren and his staff, and Ralph Cross of Massachusetts, 
colonel of the Essex regiment." 

John Dies was a master hand at spending money, and when he 
could not find enough places to dispose of it in the wilderness he 
"amused himself skipping Mexican dollars across the Catskill." His 
father-in-law did not approve of his spendthrift ways and took care 
that he should not throw away his daughter's dollars after he 
(Goelet) has passed on, "for," he says in his will, "of his prudence 
I have no opinion." Their sons settled at Gilboa, the daughters, 
Catherine and Jane, married sons of Hubartus and Isaac DuBois. 
The "madam" died in 1799, and her obituary in the Catskill Packet 
says "her virtue, piety, benevolence and charity have been equaled by 
very few." Jane Dies lies in the burial place of the DuBoises nearly 
opposite her one-time home. The house was for years known as 
the "Stone Jug" and was destroyed to make way for a brick in- 
dustry, also deceased. 

Benjamin Fanning and Christina Dies were the parents of Dr. 
Nelson Fanning, a Catskill physician of high standing whose two 
daughters died recently within a few days of each other. Jane Dies 
was also the great-grandmother of the late Walton Van Loan, whose 
Catskill Mountain Guide is so well known and who claimed that 
his ancestor, Pietre Van Loan, came down the St. Lawrence in 159S, 
eleven years before Hudson, to "join his countryman at Fort .Or- 
ange," and was therefore the first to discover the Hvidson. 

The home of Cornelius DuBois at the Landing was built in 17 62 
on the western bank of the Catskill. On the east was a broader 
and deeper Catskill than that of to-day, "for sloops sailed up it as 
far as the Vosen Kill," where there was a wharf. The opposite 
shore sloped upward to a hill rising a hundred feet. Little brooks 
ran down the hill, along which majestic pines and beautiful white 
oaks stood out among the scrubby growth of its rocky sides. At the 
foot of the hill were the orchard and corn-field of Bogardus. The 
smoke from the chimney of his brother along the Uylen Kill could be 
seen above the trees, and soon he was to see the orchards and the 
new and wonderful mansion of Madam Dies. By 1781 four or five 
houses and a store had been built. 

It was late Autumn of 1781 that Cornelius, who had served as 
a colonel in the army, said to his family: "It is fitting that our 
neighbors should come together for public rejoicing over the sur- 
render of Cornwallis. The turkies and the chickens are fattened, 
the hams are cured and the cider mellowed. Let us have a feast." 

Next day messengers were dispatched to the settlers. It was a 
time never to be forgotten. They danced, sang and feasted, and 
took frequent sips of the flip and toddy from the bockjies (wooden 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 65 

howls). A Tory who had repented of his evil ways was among the 
guests, and to emphasize his repentance and prove his loyalty asked 
each neighbor to drink with him to America's success, until so full 
of toddy did he become that he "turned the bowl upside down upon 
his head, the liquor streaming down his face." The people were 
wild with joy. Dutch reserve was cast to the winds, and when even 
an elder in "good and regular standing" became too jubilant, the 
occasion was thought to justify the act. The slaves also had a part 
in the rejoicing, feasting and dancing in the kitchen. 

Colonel DuBois was a faithful patriot and a generous man. 
His hospitality was unlimited, and many settlers from Schoharie 
and the Delaware found refuge in his home when driven out by 
Indians. Did any of his friends need money, it was given with a 
liberal hand as long as he had it to give. 

In 1785 Garret Abeel's house was built where the Armory now 
stands. He was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for many 
years, and a prominent citizen. 

In 1792 a four-page 9x14 weekly newspaper. The Catskill 
Packet, was edited by Mackay Croswell. It was printed on two 
sheets of coarse blue paper and cost ten shillings per annum. Its 
heading was a manless packet or sloop, flying the American flag be- 
tween the words "Catskill" and "Packet." Thomas O'Hara Cros- 
well, his brother, was associate editor and "made all the cuts." In 
the first issue was an advertisement of a runaway negro boy, and 
Mackay Croswell said his brother "Tom sat up shivering three cold 
nights to cut out that little nigger." .Toseph Rundell was the 
advertiser of a runaway boy, Tunis Weatherworks, and the reward 
for his return to his master was "six pence and no charges paid." 

This first issue predicts "peculiar benefits fi'om the establish- 
ment of a press (If conducted properly) in this infant settlement; 
whose inhabitants from its fertility and particular advantages, are 
blessed with every source of human happiness but that of an easy 
access to useful information, which they have hitherto been destitute 
of, or obtained with difficulty." Its news from Paris is dated April 
23d; that from New York, July 3d. Little space is given to local 
news. Outside or foreign news was doubtless what the settlers 
wanted, for local news would pass from house to house more quickly 
than the paper. Five lines tell of the completion of the stone bridge 
at Catskill (Leeds). Gideon Brockway & Bros, warn "those whom we 
have repeatedly requested to call and settle, that we now and for 
the last time in this way, call loudly," and insist on payment. 

In the second issue is recorded the marriage of Major Augus- 
tine Provost, "of distinguished character and fortune, to the amiable 
Miss Anna Bogardus, daughter of Mr. Jacob Bogardus, merchant of 
this place." Horse-stealing seems to have been so common that an 
association was formed and ten persons appointed to pursue in every 
direction whenever a horse was stolen. A few months later, "a sorrel 
horse with camel-like neck, all out of proportion," was advertised as 
strayed or stolen. 

The year 1792 closed with a few cases of small pox in the 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^THE LANDING 



village, and the first month of the new year brought the death of 
Dr. Elisha Camp, who died of "a disorder of the lungs" at the age of 
forty-two. "leaving a widow and numerous family disconsolate" while 
the public "deplored the departure of a good and useful member of 
society." Mrs. Camp turned to tavern-keeping to support her family. 

The' winter and spring of 1793 was a time of marrying among 
the young ladies at the Landing. Sally, the daughter of Jacob 
Bogardus, married William Wetmore; Miss Poliana Street married 
Peter I. Bogardus, while Polly Raymond became the wife of Noah 
Everest, who advertised an assortment of goods in exchange for 
farm produce, "or even (•«*/( itself rather than disoblige customers." 

In May a post route was established from Hudson through 
Catskill "to the painted post in Tioga; there to meet the Post from 
Reading, Pa. ' The Fourth of July was "more universally celebrated 
than ever before. * * * Perdition catch the man who would 
lessen the blessings we enjoy." 

Three years later Dr. Croswell opened a drug store and became 
post master, holding the office fifty years. He married Ruth Pierce, 
born in 1765, a sister of John Pierce who was Paymaster General of 
our forces during the Revolution and of whom it has been said: 
"His heart was pure and his hands clean." The wife of John Pierce 
was the daughter of Dr. Baird, the medical attendant of Washington. 
Ruth witnessed the inauguration of Washington, and on a visit to 
New York was invited to take tea with his family. It was at the 
time when Washington was ill of quinsy and she heard Dr. Baird 
repeat the memorable words of the President when he came from 
the sick-room "with a grave and anxious face." She became the 
wafe of Dr. Thomas O'Hara Croswell, and a year later a resident of 
Catskill. It was her sister Sally who opened the celebrated Litch- 
field seminary. 

Mrs. Croswell was a quiet, unassuming yet tireless worker for 
the good of the community. She was practical yet sympathetic, 
unselfish, patient and straightforward. She established the first 
female prayer meeting, and amidst ridicule and reproach formed a 
"Woman's Temperance League against the custom of furnishing 
intoxicating cordials at afternoon tea, breaking up the custom." 
She left a deep impression upon the community, as was shown by 
her funeral services in the Presbyterian church, of which she was 
one of the first members: "A large number of relatives and friends, 
some coming long distances, and all the clergymen of the village, 
came to do her honor. All places of business were closed and the 
bells of all the churches tolled as she was borne to the cemetery. 
She passed away at the age of 96 years 10 months and 1 •"; days, at 
the home of Mrs. Caroline Wey, her adopted daughter." 

The twelfth birthday of The Recorder was celebrated by the 
editor, Mackay Croswell, taking his son into partnership, and a 
year later it was enlarged and improved. When Mackay Croswell 
retired from The Recorder he opened the village tavern, "which 
became noted for the excellency of its cuisine, hospitality and 
Fourth of July dinners." His daughter Jeanette. who was born 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^THE LANDING 67 

there, became the wife of Milton S. Vedder, who, dying a few years 
later, left her with one child, Harry M. C. Vedder. She became a 
teacher and is said to have been "an energetic, vigorous woman, 
kind to the poor." The tavern where she was born was the Catskill 
House, which stood on the site of the Mott & Gaylord Opera House, 
now occupied by the Daily Mail and various stores and offices. 

While Mackay Croswell appealed to the head, his brother doc- 
tor attended to the physical needs of the people, combining energies 
on the paper until 1799, and in 1800 Harry Croswell became one of 
the editors. He was an intellectual giant who afterward became 
an Episcopal clergyman. 

The drug store of William DuBois is the old store of 1795 o*' 
Dr. Thomas O'Hara Croswell, and Dr. Brace his successor. William 
H. Wey married Dr. Croswell's adopted daughter and continued th" 
business until his death, then Benjamin Wey kept it alone, havine; 
a partner for one year — Edward Lavelle. For thirteen years it was 
Wey and DuBois. 

Dr. Croswell was the "Uncle Doctor" of Catskill, and Dr. Abel 
Brace studied with him. became partner and succeeded him, "not 
onlv in business but in the love of the community." For sixtv years 
a citizen, ''one of the landmarks of a generation now passed awav." 

Harmony Lodge was the first Masonic association in Catskill. 
instituted in 1794. .Vmone: the first members was Samuel Haight, 
merchant and Brigadier General. Thomas Thomson, a great man 
Avho went to West Indies accompanied by two slaves, .Tosephus and 
Caesar, came home broken in health, a suspected leper, never going 
out without his head swathed in bandages. His mysterious West 
Indian experiences were never revealed by him or hig faithful slaves. 
His mansion which he built was afterward the home of Thomas Cole. 
"'He caused a vault to be built near his house, but later it was 
torn down and he rests in the village cemetery." 

.Tohn Van der Speigrle Scott was an able lawyer and politician 
resoected by all. He was also .ludge of Greene County. As a hobby 
he turned to horticulture and gained a reputation for raisinar choice 
fruits and vearetables which he sometimes nroterted from vounesters 
with a eun. It is recorded of Stenhen and Tra Day that "thev lived 
lives unblamable." Stephen Dav "exchanged wares of Eastern Col- 
onies and imports from West Indies for the grain of the farmers and 
dairy products of their vrouws." Before many years he became 
.Tudge Day. "Bv Captain Hale housewives used to set their clocks." 

When the house of Thomas Botsford on the corner of Main and 
Thomson streets was built the attic became the home of Harmony 
Lodge. It was occupied in 1818 by Catskill I.,oda:e, but 'many of 
the old members joined the new association." This association is 
"thoueht to have continued until 1827, the time of anti-masonic 
excitement. Its charter was signed by DeWitt Clinton. Cqtskill 
Lodge No. 486 was organized in 18.^9. Catskill had a Mechanical 
Society in 1807, and in 184fi Hendrick Hudson Lodae L O. O. F. 
came into existence. The many other fraternities and associations 
of which Catskill is possessed came later. 



68 HISTORIC CATSKILI— THE LANDING 

It was some time between 1795 and 1797 that Duke de la 
Rochefoucault Liancourt on a tour through the United States vis- 
ited Catskill, the guest of Jacobus Bogardus, "an American Loyalist 
and son-in-law of Major Provost," who had purchased the house 
and lands of Cornelius DuBois. Catskill was in a transition state. 
It had outgrown its infant beauty of untouched forest and uncom- 
mercialized stream. Like a growing child, at first the ways of the 
world but added grace — the white winged sloops that sailed up the 
Catskill, the log cabins and log fences, the ox-teams and the wood- 
roads had something of beauty, but as time passed it grew ungainly, 
the roads in spring hub-deep with mud, the houses set here and 
there with little beauty or symmetry. To its inhabitants was added 
the undesirable element always following on the trail of a new town. 
The country, too, was growing up; the big estates had been divided 
among the numerous sons of the pioneers, and were now being sub- 
divided among their grandsons. At first everything necessary for 
use "except tea and spices was raised on the farm;" now there was 
a growing commercial give-and-take between them and the villages 
and distant cities. The duke in his description, printed in London 
in 1799, shows up both shadows and high lights, his observations 
colored by the prejudices of his Loyalist host, who was not in favor 
with his Dutch neighbors. 

The duke found the cultivation of the soil indifferent — 12 
bushels of wheat to the acre, excepting that of his host, which 
reached 35 bushels. He speaks of an unusual event, the "sinking or 
sliding of a hill one hundred feet above the Catskill, on Mr. Bo- 
gardus's estate, which fell fifty feet so perpendicularly that a flock 
of sheep feeding on the spot went down without being overturned, 
and the trees still stood upright at the bottom of the chasm, the 
whole about four acres in extent." He says, "The people attribute it 
to the operation of water without well knowing why, for the people 
of Catskill are neither deep read nor versed in natural philosophy, 
nor addicted to observation. Mr. Bogardus does not bestow on his 
neighbors a favorable character. * * * jjg describes them as 
mischievous and thievish," and the fact that a bridge across a stream 
had recently been burned confirmed him in that opinion. 

"Horse races are common. Workmen receive 13 dollars a 
month, and beef sold at 8c. a pound. The property upon which the 
town stands is disputed by three claimants, but the lots bring a good 
price and are sold as high as 375 dollars." The duke was the guest 
of Mr. Bogardus for several days, and slept in the southwest corner 
room of what is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Palmatier. 

In the summer of 1797 Thomson and Grant established "a ferry 
across the North River at Catskill Landing with good, new, safe 
boats," and it was "hoped that no person will be induced in the 
future to lose several miles of travel by crossing at Hvidson, as the 
price is here set at the same rate. Constant attendance will be given 
at the sign of the ferry landing, near Caleb Street's white house 
on the corner." 

The winter of 1799 was severe, the river breaking up the last 



mSTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 69 

of March after having been closed for four months, and flocks and 
herds suffered from want of fodder. In 1800 subscriptions to the 
Susquehanna Turnpike were open, the Commissioners being Henry 
Livingston of Ancram, Stephen Day, George Hale, Garret Abeel, 
Samuel Haight, Caleb Benton and Martin Schuneman of Catskill, 
Salmon Wattles of Franklyn, Solomon Martin of Unadilla. 

A mail route was established (1800) from Hudson through 
Catskill to Owego. In August Beman Brockway and James Bennet 
advertised for twenty laboring men, five yoke of oxen, carts, etc., to 
work on the Susquehanna Turnpike. By the middle of August 
"2,500 shares had been taken and some distance laid out." 

In September Capt. Christopher Hill of the ship Sophia died on 
passage from Charleston to New York, of fever. Soon the mail 
service moved up a peg and ran twice a week between Hudson and 
Catskill; Mr. Joshua Whitney the contractor. 

The progress of the new turnpike called forth the following 
article in the Western Constellation: "The rapidity with which 




STOXE BRID(;E ox SUSQIKH.4NNA TURNPIKK .\T Dl'BHASI 

the turnpike road from Salisbury, on the Connecticut, to Wattles 
Ferry is progressing, exceeds anything of the nature heretofore 
known, and is at once an evidence of the wealth and public spirit 
of the inhabitants living on the road, and also of the immense travel 
through Catskill to and from the western counties of the state. Not- 
withstanding the recent date of the act for establishing the cor- 
poration, such has been the vigilance of the gentlemen appointed 
to carry it into effect, that the distance of 27 miles, on the west 
side of the Hudson river, will be made in the present and forepart 
of the next season, 7 miles of which is now nearly completed." 

"Proposals have also been received by the directors, who are 
about to make contracts for finishing the road on the east side of the 



70 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

river, to Salisbury line, the next summer, which is about the dis- 
tance of 3 miles; so that there is the fairest prospect of having 
miles completed within 15 months of the passing of the act. The 
shares in the above road have hitherto been ciiiefly taken up by 
gentlemen residing in Catskill and its vicinity, from whose spirited 
exertions the road will undoubtedly be completed much sooner than 
was contemplated by the Legislature." 

In 1801 Croswell notes "with pleasure the growth in popula- 
tion, and the flattering prospects of Catskill Landing." "In the year 
1792," he says, "the village contained but ten buildings; a coasting 
sloop of 50 or 60 tons burthen, was then the only vessel owned in 
the place, and this was more than sufficient to transport to New 
York, all the produce brought to market — no more than 624 bushels 
of wheat was purchased in the course of the year, during which 
time upwards of 700 bushels of corn was brought from New York 
and other places for the subsistence of the inhabitants at the west- 
ward, until their crops should come in. Now (1801 ) Catskill con- 
tains 156 buildings, two ships, and one schooner engaged in foreign 
trade, are owned here, besides 8 coasting sloops of 70 to 100 tons 
burthen, which are constantly employed in transporting the produce 
of the country to New York and the sea ports. Shipping to the 
amount of $37,000 was built here the season past." In 1792 there 
was brought to market 624 bushels of wheat, and in 1800 it had 
increased to 4 6,164 bushels. The prospect for 1801 is propor- 
tionately much greater, as in one day last week the quantity of 
wheat taken by the merchants of the place amounted to 4108 bushels, 
and upward of 800 loaded sleighs entered the village on that day 
by the great western roads. The number from other quarters is not 
precisely known but was probably somewhat less. * * * Much 
more rapid growth may be calculated upon." That year the ice 
broke up in the creek and river the last week in April. 

In 1802 the pride of Catskill was the new drawbridge, so much 
of a curiosity that people came miles to see it. It was opened with 
great ceremony. The fee for foot passengers was three cents, and of 
the bridge-tenders "Old Batterson" tapped the pockets of the passers- 
by, knocking off their hats when they refused to pay, and Zacharias 
Dederick "tapped while they waited" the boots and shoes of the 
people in a little building at the end of the bridge. 

In 1800 the Catskill Academy (Union Hall) was incorporated 
by Regency and progressed beyond expectation, "inferior to none 
in the state in usefulness." Mr. Bradford, the principal, was an 
Episcopal clergyman who obtained his education at Oxford, Eng.. 
and was "chosen for religious and moral influence as well as edu- 
cation." Mr. Wyman was the English teacher, 'who was a "good 
grammarian and complete master of vulgar arithmetic and penman- 
ship," and French was taught by "a foreigner who speaks and pro- 
nounces it with purity." Quarterly examinations and public exer- 
cises were given to fit the pupils for college, and the trustees were a 
visiting committee. Board could be had "in good families and as 
reasonable, it is presumed, as at any other place whatever." 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 



71 



Henry Brace says in 1865 that at least fifty years before the 
village school stood southeast of the Court House not far from a 
grove called The Cedars; * * * the Academy on what is 
now Thomson street, convenient to Peter Bogardus's apple orchard. 
It was one-half brick and one-half wood, with the only bell in town 
except the Court House. The academy bell called St. Luke's, and 




OLD ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, VACATED IN 1894 



the Court House bell the Presbyterian congregation to worship. 
For a long time they were called the "big and little bell." After 
a time the village school became too sectarian, the Academy too 
promiscuous in character, and another institution came into being, 



72 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 



known as "Captain Van Loan's School," taught by Robert K. Moul- 
ton, who in ]818 was at Madison. Catskill has always believed in 
education. A Botanical School, Lancasterian, Classical, an Infant 
School with 250 pupils (1830), African Free School, a French class 
with Mons. Roux as teacher, and a Female Seminary at the Old 
Stone Jug are among its institutions. At the Academy in 1807 "fully 
1000 people were present at the entertainment given by the pupils." 
"St. Luke's Parish was founded in 1801, its church built in 
1804 under Rev. Richard Bradford, and its first rector Rev. Ami 
Rogers." Among its first members were Haight, Benton, Scott, 
Blanchard, Beach. Donnely, Pinckney, DuBois, Bogardus, Croswell, 
Van Loan, Calkins, Selleck, Doan. Hinman, Waight, Donnely. Chollet, 




V.\I>I.KV <)l TlIK t ATSKILL FltO.M 1 OOT OI HAIGHT'S HILL 



Chandler and Nichols. "The first church was of wood and had a 
steeple. The Rev. Mr. Prentiss, in 1818 and for twenty-one years 
its rector, was killed by the overturning of a stage near his resi- 
dence." 

In 1839 the church was destroyed by fire, and almost immedi- 
ately a new edifice was begun on the site of the old and was "built 
after plans drawn by Thomas Cole." Again the church was greatly 
damaged by fire and was then enlarged, galleries taken out and a 
recess chancel put in. In 1894 the church on the hill was built, a 
modern solid sanctuary of stone, beside it the rectory, and the old 
church has become a motor repair shop. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 



73 



Rev. Louis L. Noble, one time rector of this church, was the 
pastor and friend of the artist, Thomas Cole, who in some measure 
belongs to Catskill. Cole was born in England, "his father an un- 
successful woolen manufacturer," and Thomas, resisting the at- 
tempts of the family to make of him either an attorney or an iron 
manufacturer, trod the thorny path of an artist without sufficient 
means of support. Later, in America, he made such friends as 
Morse, Durand, Innman and other "well known artists, and "1826 
found him up the Hudson, writing poems and painting scenes of 
the Catskill Mountains." In 1836 he gave to the public the "Course 
of Empire." His life as written by Noble is well worth reading. 

Following St. Luke's, a Baptist Church was organized in the 




ONE OF ARTIST COLE'S INSPIRATIONS 



village (1803) "at the home of Deacon Hill." Its members num- 
bered seven faithful souls: Rev. Truman Beeman, Brethren Hiland 
Hill, Penn Parish, David Johnson; with Mrs. Keturah Hill, Ruth 
Drake and Betsy Parish," and it is said, "As anciently the ark abode 
for a season in the house of Obed Edom, this Church for twenty 
years tarried in the house of Deacon Hill. Sometimes it met in the 
village schoolhouse or in the Court House." Mrs. Keturah Hill was 
the first to be immersed. In 1823 they had their own house of 
worship. Three times their church home has been burned, and 
they are now worshiping in the fourth, described at the time of its 
dedication as a "beautiful Gothic structure of graceful proportions. 



74 fflSTORIC CATSKILI^THE LANDING 

its seats of a generous height of back and breadth of cushion. The 
dedication sermon was solid gold, 22 carats fine. It was preached 
by the Rev. Dr. Bowling, a man of generous proportions, physically 
as well as mentally, a pastor of forty years ago. His reminiscences 
of the olden days were beautiful and touching." 

The Presbyterian Church from its organization in 1803 has 
been known as Christ's Church of Catskill. From the first its 
members included "several wealthy and public spirited men." Its 
first services were held in the Court House, and Rev. David Porter 
was its first established pastor, who for ten months served in the 
Revolutionary Army. He is said to have had "great wisdom, dignity, 
simplicity and power — their leader for nearly twenty-eight years. 
Samuel Penfield, who was a firm friend of Dr. Porter, died the same 
day and hour. In 1808 began the building of the church. It had 
square family box pews, galleries and high pulpit. Thirty years 
later all this was changed, and in 1858 the exterior "needed paint- 
ing; there was no porch, and above the doors, which had iron 
handles and latches, were arched fan-lights." When the church was 
built there was no street running from Bridge (or Court) street to 
William street, hence the approach from Main. Six pastors in 119 
years has been its wonderful record. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church had its beginnings about 1815. 
when there was preaching in the Court House. Its first building 
was put up in 1824 on the north side of Thomson street. The present 
church of 1863 was modeled after the Methodist Church at Flush- 
ing, L. I., and was dedicated by Bishop Simpson in 1864. The 
names of such men as Alfred Foote (who came to Catskill in 1836) 
and Benjamin Wiltse (three years later), with others of like prom- 
inence, active in the church, have been closely indentified with it. 
At first it -was part of a circuit embracing Coxsackie, Coeymans, 
Leeds, Sandy Plains, High Hill, Acra, Woodstock and Durham, bu 
now and for many years has been an independent and flourishing 
church organization. 

St. Patrick's Church was first established in 1853 or 1854, 
through Rev. Father Howard of Hudson. The first resident priest 
was Rev. Father Myers. Under Rev. Father William J. Finneran 
the present church was built, and afterward the parochial school. 
He was frail in body but strong in spirit, soon called to lay down 
the work, which was taken by Rev. Father Fitzgerald, and now 
there is a fine church property consisting of church, rectory. Sisters' 
home and school. 

Of the newspapers of Catskill. The Packet was born and grew 
up with the business of the village. Its first issue was that of Aug. 
6, 1792, published by Mackay Croswell and Company, the "company " 
being his brother, the first physician of the place. It was printed 
under various titles and editors until in 1861 J. B. Hall assumed 
publication, its name Recorder and Democrat settling down to tha't 
of The Recorder in 1871. 

The Catskill Messenger was established in 1830 by Ira DuBois. 
and after passing through various hands became the Greene County 



fflSTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 75 

Whig under Trowbridge & Gunn, and in 1857 published by Marcus 
H. Trowbridge; after his death, by Mrs. Trowbridge and Eugene 
Wayne, since then under the Craigies. 

The Daily Mail — or Catskill Morning Mail — was started in 
1879 by John D. Smith, proved successful and is now owned and 
edited by M. Edw. Silberstein. 

The Catskill Enterprise, established in 1898 by F. A. Gallt, his 
sons and daughter associated with him, is still on the job at West 
Catskill. 

A number of weeklies that sprang up from time to time hav 
been absorbed by The Recorder or died a natural death. 

Court was first held in the Academy building, and the Academy 
and grounds were purchased in 1801. Three years later the jail 
was built, and a Court House in 1812 (now the Masonic Temple). 
Four executions have taken place at the jail. Catskill's first ceme- 
tery was on the corner of Broad and Livingston streets, the present 
one laid out in 1812. It has been enlarged three times. Dr. Lee 
Ensign, who was prominent in enlarging and beautifying it in 1848, 
was the first to be buried there. The Catskill Bank is one of the 
oldest institutions in Catskill, incorporated in 1813; the Tanners in 
1831, and the Savings Bank in 1868. 

Monday, May 14, 1804, the Packet or Western Constellation 
became the Catskill Recorder, and the editor pledges himself that 
"although his politics are decidedly and unalterably Federal, yet 
any essay from those opposed to him in politics, shall be cheerfully 
inserted, and the name of the author ever remain an inviolable 
secret. But, as he is the only responsible person, he must reserve 
to himself the right of rejecting whatever in its nature is libelous 
or foul and indecent. Not a column of this paper shall be soiled 
by personalities and scurility." 

Under the signature of "Mundities" there is a plea for clean- 
liness in the village of Catskill, "where every family manages in 
its own way; and its own way is frequently the way of filth and 
uncleanliness. It is impossible to walk on our streets without a 
salute of the most nauseous scent every few paces, from putrid fish 
and other impurities. Yellow fever and every other deadly disease 
lurks about very many kitchens, docks and yards. By due attention 
to cleanliness this would undoubtedly be one of the most healthful 
villages in the state; a pure breeze from the river, no stagnant 
water in the neighborhood,- the free current of the Catskill creek, 
and every other natural advantage, almost force the inhabitants to 
be healthy in spite of their negligence." 

In 1804 a hundred-foot dock was built "along the channel of 
the Hudson River, from end of long wharf at Boomptjes Hook." 
('atskill then had a Mechanic Society, and a Library Society (with 
fi72 volumes in 1803). On Oct. 10, 1804, snow fell to the depth of 
from twelve to eighteen inches. 

A fire engine was purchased in ISO;"), and the trustees ordered 
all owners of houses, stores and workshops to provide good and sufli- 
cient leathei- buckets. The printer reminds a reader or readers that 



76 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

"late last fall a wheelbarrow of about middling size, somewhat dis- 
ordered in the legs, rather rheumatic in its arms and shoulders, and 
a little rickety in the head, absconded." Ezra Rundall, who accused 
Samuel Haight of cheating him out of some property, two weeks 
later retracts his "revilery, which I find to be contrary to the word 
of God, which I publicly confess." 

A general review of the militia in November called forth praise 
for the "Independent Blues," who "displayed a martial .appearance 
and thorough knowledge of military tactics (prompt, accurate and 
steady discipline"). 

The gaoler protests against being forced "personally to provide 
for debtors or to divest himself of humanity and see his fellow-man 
suffer." He believes "it is only necessary to remind his fellow- 
citizens of conditions," etc. His appeal was answered by a call to 
citizens to meet at Donnely's Inn to "form a humane society for the 
relief of debtors confined in gaol and destitute of means of suste- 
nance and of firewood." Another event was a stage run by Abner 
Miller on Tuesdays from Catskill to Athens and back. 

In 1806 nine by-laws were adopted by the Village of Catskill, 
which in effect prohibited slaughtering of animals within the village 
limits, the "running at large to exceed 4 8 hours of unyoked and 
unrung swine, or of geese or ducks within the compact part of the 
village," for obstructing the street, neglecting to remove anything 
contrary to good health, for all of which fines were imposed, and 
also for willfully running or galloping a horse or horses through 
street or alley; and one dollar to be paid "by an inhabitant of the 
village who shall spend his time during the Sabbath at tavern or 
grocery and there purchase or drink any liquor on the Sabbath, or 
shall angle with hook or line or fish with nets in any creek, or shall 
swim or bathe in any creek or river within the limits of the village 
on the Sabbath." If horse or horses ran away through street or 
alley then the owner should "forfeit two dollars." 

In September, 1806, at the time when most old inhabitants 
look for a "line storm," the skies grew black and there were signs 
of an electric shower. Darker and darker grew the sky, there were 
mutterings of thunder, and the inhabitants hurried indoors. It was 
"a tremendous storm of rain, hail, thunder and lightning, with 
hail-stones the size of a musket-ball." Window-panes were broken 
and much damage done. "The house of John R. Hollenbeck at the 
ferry opposite Catskill had over 150 panes of glass broken in its 
windows," and the hail-stones were said to be "nearly the size of 
hen's eggs." 

In 1807 the sum of $1,500 was collected for sidewalks, and 
$500 for sewers, and a thousand loads of flagging stone advertised 
for, while to the other ordinances was added $5 fine "for any person 
whose chimney shall take fire or set on fire." On the 24th of Feb- 
ruary the ice in the river was still very thick. 

Catskill was struggling upward in many ways, but an "Enemy 
to Bad Roads" complains to the editor of The Recorder that "the 
road through Catskill is notoriously bad. The corporation formed 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 77 

the year before took the repairing of the road from John E. Darby 
either by contract or by force as far as the corporation extended, 
* * * have worked where it wanted it least, and left it worse 
than they found it. * * * many places almost impassable; 
sometimes one wheel down in a hole, sometimes another. Owing to 
proprietors of aqueducts leaving taps of pen-stocks in a situation 
that water continually running from them causes a complete reser- 
voir, which is very convenient and without expense, consequently 
scarcely a house in the street but may have a bathing place, a con- 
venience I never knew in any other place." 

In 1807 there was a "call to the Court House to take into 
consideration the late National insult offered Americans by the 
British flag, and to adopt such measures as the magnitude of the 
injury, and our means may demand." Later "Captain Haight's Com- 
pany of Union Volunteers unanimously tendered their service to 
Brigadier General Brown, as part of the quota of 102 men to be 
detached from the brigade." A few weeks later the Union Volun- 
teers were ordered "to meet at Francis Botsford's completely 
equipped for action," by John Merrifield, Orderly Sergeant. 

The "33d anniversary of American Independence" was cele- 
brated in an "excessive rain, and party feelings were discarded. 
All were anxious to do honor to themselves, to the day and the 
occasion." A morning gun was fired, the bells rung and reveille 
beaten at sunrise with a salute of 17 guns. At 12 o'clock the pro- 
cession — formed of Haight's and Lacy's volunteer companies, civil 
authorities, clergy, band, orator and citizens, preceded by an old 
field piece — moved to the new meeting house, where prayer was 
made by Rev. Mr. Reed, Declaration read by Mr. Dorian, and an 
elegant address made by Cantine. Dinner was provided at Mr. Bots- 
ford's, that being the principal tavern at that time. "Colonel Sam- 
uel Haight was the presiding president, Garret Abeel and Patrick 
Hamilton, vice-presidents." 17 toasts were given "under discharge 
of cannon." 

In 1807 there was much talk of the boat Robert Fulton had 
built to run by steam and travel at the tremendous rate of four 
miles an hour. One day the news went 'round the village that a 
curious vessel without a sail was sighted. Could it be Fulton's 
invention? Then Boomptjes Hoeck was still an island, and "sev- 
eral boys, among them Thurlow Weed, put their clothes on a board," 
and pushing it before them, swam out to the island to see "the devil 
and his saw-mill go by." Next year the boat was enlarged and 
improved and the fare from Catskill including berth and meals was 
$5. When other steamboats took their place on the river, then fol- 
lowed racing and accidents and there were many protests. So eager 
were the captains to beat their rivals that insufficient time was 
given to taking on passengers and sometimes they were "precipi- 
tated in the water and drowned." Occasionally a boiler burst or the 
boat took fire. The Long Dock was filled in in 1820. 

One hundred and thirteen years ago if you wished to take one of 
the steamboats Car of Neptune, Paragon or North River from Cats- 



78 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

kill when the wind was blowing hard, you must be on time to set a 
"signal or come off in a boat." At that time the Catskill ferry was 
so efficient that, "in the short space of two hours it conveyed from 
the west to the eastern shore of the North River (Hudson), 100 fat 
cattle, 3 wagons, 1 1 horses, with their drivers and riders and sundry 
footmen : and this at a time when there was much ice a-floating the 
river, and the wind and tide by no means as favorable as at many 
other times." 

The first ferryboat that is remembered was that of Henry Van 
Gorden, "a scow with mast and sail on one side" to be used when 
the wind blew. In calm weather two long oars were used, and an- 
other at the stern for steering. Before 1851 the scow was pro- 
pelled by four horses, two on each side, and if the wind were blow- 
ing it was just a matter of luck how near it came to the landing 
on the other side. 

In 1809 J. Pinckney advertises a house on Main street, two 
shares in Christ's Church, and "in the village may be had (appur- 
tenanced with an expectancy) a few books, if those who have bor- 
rowed should be good enough to return them." 

There was an interesting controversy between The Eagle, a 
paper printed by Nathan Elliott, and Mr. Cantine, in which neither 
side seems to hesitate in expressing his opinion without reservation. 
Mr. Cantine calls The Eagle "a sink of corruption, judging by its 
contents, edited by the devil's own imps." The Eagle, although 
ably supported, gets the worst of the argument. Another communica- 
tion is in the form of an advertisement, "A New Patent Machine 
For Sale at the Sign of the Eagle. This machine manufactures lies 
with wonderful facility * * * and requires no raw material 
to support it." For a month or more the controversy rages, ap- 
parently getting nowhere, and then no further mention is made of 
it; probably it has no more significance than to show that human 
natvire and editors of different political faith were the same then 
as now. 

Charges against .Judge Cook in The Eagle are proved "untrue 
and a scandal" by witnesses and by a printed statement of T. B. and 
A. Cook's account with .Joseph Graham, and war between the two 
political parties waxes hot, but a "Greene County Farmer" says, 
''Finally, brethren, be of good cheer and be not dismayed by a multi- 
plicity of opinions abroad in the world, nor suffer yourselves to be 
discouraged from coming to the field of action." 

At midnight one day in April of 1810 the little village was 
roused from sleep by the ringing of the fire-bells, which always 
struck terror to every heart. It proved to be the shop of Cornelius 
Clark, hatter, near the center of the village. It was "only by the 
greatest exertion of men and women that the village was saved." 

After a time (1814) the young men, tired of the political bick- 
erings of their elders, asserted themselves by expressing their views 
as follows: "The young men of Catskill, viewing with regret the 
baneful effects of party spirit and the influence it has upon the minds 
of some men. insomuch that they refuse to unite with others of 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 79 

different political opinions. * * * appointed a committee of 
arrangements for the proper celebration of Independence Day." The 
committee was composed of C. DuBois, J. Bogardus, jr., E. Croswell, 
C. C. Abeel, H. Baker, W. W. Van Loan, J. DuBois, S. G. Andrews 
and C. Baker. This decided step had a good effect, for it is said the 
"anniversary of Independence Day was celebrated by different par- 
ties in splendid style," and also that the "day was spent in good 
order and perfect harmony," and "at Cairo without distinction of 
party." 

In August the "drafted militia, commanded by Colonel Merchant 
Lawrence, were ordered to rendezvous at Van Bergen's Coffee House 
in Catskill with 4 days provision, ready cooked, clothing for 3 
months service, equipped with musket, bayonette, cartridge box, or 
rifle and rifle pouch, knapsack, blanket and canteen." John A. 
Overbaugh was the Commandant. "200 flne healthy looking young 
men obeyed the order, rendezvoused and marched for embarkation, 
cheerfully leaving home for the fatigues of campaign at call of duty, 
accompanied by a numerous concourse of citizens who saluted them 
with a discharge of cannon and hearty cheers. God grant them 
health and safe return." Subscriptions were taken up for the "relief 
of needy families whose heads were performing military duty for 
the defence of New York," and $300 were raised at Madison for the 
men from that village. In September a regiment from Durham ren- 
dezvoused in Catskill and the same day sailed for New York. 

On February S, 1815, at 5 p. m. an extra was printed with 
the heading, "Glorious News from New Orleans! Defeat of the 
British Army!" A week later the heading was "Peace! Language 
would fail to describe the animated faces, the joyous and exhilarated 
hearts that were exhibited on this happy occasion. The national 
salute was fired yesterday afternoon, and every village brilliantly 
illuminated." 

The people of the Reformed faith in Catskill and the Imboght 
attended services at Old Catskill and Madison, with perhaps oc- 
casional meetings at the Landing, until 1810. when in Rev. Henry 
Ostrander's call it was stipulated he should preach in the English 
language at the Landing. This he did on Sunday afternoons during 
the summer months. Following him came Rev. Peter S. Wynkoop, 
and half his services were devoted to the Landing. This continued 
during Rev. Isaac N. Wyckoff's pastorate, although later, as the 
congregation grew, they had preaching on alternate Sunday morn- 
ings. During this time they worshiped either in the Episcopal 
Church or the Court House. In 1828 a church was built with 
gallery on three sides and Consistory room over the vestibule. 
Three years later came a great revival, when "more than a hundred 
joined the church" and the mother church decided a colleague 
should be called, that preaching might be more frequent in Madison, 
Catskill and Kiskatom. This was done and .John C. Van Liew was 
chosen for the work. 

In 1833 Catskill charge separated from the Church at Leeds. 
After Wyckoff came James Romyn, "eloquent and gifted with a 



80 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

powerful intellect but a frail body." The notes of his sermons were 
written in beautiful but so fine handwriting as to require a reading 
glass for ordinary eyes to decipher. In 1851, when fire swept 
Catskill, the church was burned, but, not discouraged by this mis- 
fortune, in eighteen months the present edifice was built, "larger 
and more commodious than the first." Rev. Acmon Van Giesen was 
the first pastor in the new church. Among its worthy and in- 
spiring pastors was Rev. Dr. Murdock, the author of "The Dutch 
Dominie of the Catskills," the hero of which is Rev. Johannes 
Schuneman. "During the revival of 1857, when 8 o'clock prayer 
meeting was kept up nearly a year, summer and winter." the bell 
was rung and the fire built by this white-haired pastor nearly sixty 
years of age. 

It was in 1824 that the Marquis de Lafayette was to visit Cats- 
kill and great preparations were made for his reception. A tri- 
umphal arch was prepared through which the procession would 
pass, and an eagle was very much desired to surmount it. Fortu- 
nately one chose that day to alight on a big tree along the Snake 
Road and opposite what is now 0. T. Heath's residence. Someone 
from Jefferson brought It down with a gun, and the eagle to the 
delight of everybody was mounted on top of the arch. The children 
of the village of Catskill raised $150, making Lafayette a member of 
the American Bible Society. "He returned kind acknowledgement 
of the honor done him." The distinguished visitor occupied a stage 
driven by Erastus Beach. 

Next year there was much talk of constructing a canal "from 
Catskill Landing to the headwaters of the creek, and from there 
along some eligible route to connect with the Erie Canal." This 
project was abandoned, and when several years later the railroad 
was talked of those who had proposed the canal favored the rail- 
road as likely to be of great benefit to Catskill. 

About this time Sabbath-breaking became a problem to be 
dealt with. An article headed "Friends of the Sabbath, Attend," 
appeared in the paper and read, "An increasing amount of carting 
on the Sabbath along the great road offends every friend of morality. 
Will no man remonstrate? Will no Christian step forward and 
incur the trouble and the administration of employing moral, and 
(if necessary) legal restraint?" It is then suggested that "a cordon 
of resolved men form a chain of observation from Catskill to Dur- 
ham and Windham, and stop loaded wagons (and perhaps the 
stage)." Volunteers were to notify "Deacon Chapman, Durham, 
Bennet Osborne of Windham, Dr. Huntington of Cairo, M. G. Van 
Vliet of Madison, Luke Kiersted of Jefferson, and Francis Sayers of 
Catskill, who will give the names to Rev. Dr. Porter. * * * jt 
is no time for Christians to sleep, when the laws of God and their 
country are trodden under foot." 

Then, as if this problem were not enough to discourage the 
people, along comes Main street. "At a village meeting the com- 
missioners appointed to enquire into the expediency of a plan to 
"McAdamize" Main street, reported in favor of scraping off the mud 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 81 

in the spring and doctoring up the street in the old way. Motives 
of economy and an opinion that we have no right to tax posterity, 
were the grounds upon which the proposition was rejected. * * 
It is melancholy enough to i-eflect that we are to be still exposed to 
the danger of drowning at every crossway in our streets, as soon as a 
shower can furnish enough of the limpid element to raise the mire. 
What seas of mud--what seas of mud 

Flow in our dirty streets! 
The very hogs come from their bogs 

To revel in the sweets. 
We wish there was a steamboat here — 

We'd set the 'steam a-going, 
And if she would not stem the tide, 
We'd get along by rowing. 
* * * Let the citizens try their present policy about twenty 
years longer, and posterity will thank them amazingly for their 
kindness in refusing to tax them." 

In 1829 Trowbridge had a candle-factory, and Kendall the 
baker advertised "Sal-ratus"' as a new article in making biscuit anu 
bread-^" better than pearl ash. Families are invited to call and 
see its operations. All necessary directions given gratis." This 
year Henry Ashley died, "One of the earliest inhabitants, the noblest 
work of God— an honest man." Horace Willard was the jeweler of 
early date, and C. S. Willard became the leading one of this section, 
followed by his brother-in-law. Captain William Allen Pennoyer, a 
veteran of the Civil War, wounded at South Mountain, "A man of 
rare intelligence and progressive ideas." 

The "Grand Canail" (Erie) was much discussed and caused 
much criticism. Some called it the "big ditch" and scoffed at the 
undertaking, while others, like the editor of The Recorder, "antici- 
pated with pleasure the time when the waters of the Great Lakes 
shall mingle with those of the Hudson." 

The breaking of ground for the Catskill & Canajoharie Rail- 
road was a great event. "On October 27, 1831, .John C. Marshall 
headed the procession" and the first shovelful of dirt was lifted "on 
the lot west of Captain Allen's house." It was in the fall of 1835 
that work was commenced on the Van Vechten farm, about eighty 
rods west of the house and between it and the bridge. "Thomas B. 
Cooke, president of the Catskill Bank; Orrin Day of the Tanners 
Bank; John Adams, lawyer; Solomon Woodruff, contractor; were 
among those who took part, T. B. Cooke breaking the first ground." 
The railroad was opposed all along the line by the farmers, and 
the engineer was not disposed to compromise. The first survey was 
in front of the Van Vechten house, between it and the barn, and 
naturally the brothers fought hard to have the route changed. John 
protected, but the engineer declared he would run the read through 
the house if he saw fit. He reckoned without due appreciation of 
Dutch character, however, for John told him "no man or set of men 
would ever build a railroad between the old stone house and barn 
while a Van Vechten lived on the farm." John was himself a sur 



> 



82 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

veyor, a man of few words who knew his rights, and after stakes had 
been set three times, and three times they were promptly removed, 
the engineer decided it would be policy to have the line run back of 
the house. Here it destroyed the garden, smoke-house and pig-pen 
and came so close to the corner of the house as to necessitate a 
heavy sustaining wall. The blasting through Austin's Glen was a 
great attraction to men and boys alike, and many were sure to be 
on hand to see the big rocks roll to the creek-bed, the air filled with 
debris. It was four years before the railroad was ready for business. 
When at last it was finished it extended from Catskill to Cooks- 
burg, a distance of 26 miles. 

The great prosperity looked for when the road was built was 
never realized. "It was a financial failure." When its small engine 
became disabled it was necessary to send it to Paterson, which in 
those days was a long journey by steamboat to Jersey City and then 
drawn by horses over the highway to Paterson. All this trouble and 
expense was in vain, for on its return it refused to budge, anc. 
"again it made the tedious journey with the same result," and the 
old stage-horse took its place for a time until finally the road was 
sold by the Comptroller and bought by the Catskill Bank for $11,000. 
The state had pledged its credit for $200,000. Hiram Van Steen- 
burgh took up the iron and timber, and the railroad became a thing 
of the past, to be succeeded in 1882 by the Catskill Mountain RR., 
which followed the same road-bed as far as South Cairo, turning 
from there to Palenville, with a branch built later to Cairo. In 
1918 the Catskill Mountain road was in its turn redviced to junk 
and oblivion. 

Along the Vosen Kill have been many changes since it was 
the home of Hans Vos, from whom it received its name. Samuel 
Haight, merchant and Brigadier General, kept in memory by the 
long hill at the foot of which he had his store, wharf and house 
(the last afterward owned by Joseph Allen, now by Elmer Davis), a 
retired sea captain, removing to Athens, where he "lived respected 
and died lamented." 

The Bulls Head tavern, its two signs painted one by artist 
Cole the other by Church his pupil, stood on the west side of the 
Vosen Kill and at one time was kept by a Mr. Gleason, "who had 
flower beds on the island," and afterward by William Salisbury, 
father of the late Frank Salisbury, who has left a drawing of the 
vicinity which shows it as he remembered it. A bark-pile occupied 
the place of Allen street, and the road ran between this and Rouse's 
tannery along the stream. Where the trolley barns recently stood 
were sheep-pens. Next to the pens, as there was then no road or 
bridge across the Catskill on the south of the turnpike, were the 
barns of William Salisbui'y and Gilbert's lumber office, and across 
the mouth of the Vosen Kill and along the Catskill was the lumber 
yard. Between the tavern on the other side of the turnpike and the 
Allen house was an ammunition house. In the early days the public 
road ran back of the Allen house and then, turning sharply, ran 
along the stream to the bridge. 



fflSTORIC CATSKILI^THE LANDING 83 



Catskill was several times visited witti cholera, but 1854 is 
known as "the cholera year,'" when eighty people died, sixteen in 
three successive nights. It was a time to try men's hearts. Rev. 
A. P. Van Giesen returned from his vacation to minister to his 
people when he learned the situation. For two weeks there had 
been only one minister in the village (Dr. Howard). The physicians 
were overworked, and "one Cook Hull, on his way over the moun- 
tains, stopped and successfully treated some of the worst cases." 
There were many heroes and some deserters, one of the last a phy- 
sician who fled to the mountains and left his wife to die, returning 
when danger was past. His former friends had no use for him and 
he soon left for another town. David B. Dunham and Francis Bots- 
ford "often buried the dead, unaided and alone." 

There are memories of faces passed on, "doctors, lawyers, mer- 
chants, priests," of judges and the lesser lights, their good deeds 
fresh in the minds of this generation, but they of necessity must be 
passed over until some later day. Others are remembered by the 
few: Dr. Mackey, his hearty laugh, large practice and fast horses: 
Dr. Fanning, who never took a vacation: Dr. Philip, the first phy- 
sician of the Homeopathic school to settle in Catskill; Dr. Selden, a 
tower of strength and skill; Pinckney & Kortz and Joshua Fiero, 
whose dry gotds stores stood for reliability, the latter with his fine 
span of horses and the curly-headed boy who often sat beside him 
and later became Senator; John T. Mann, Thomas Ferrier and 
C. C. Abeel, whose names stood for success. There was the A. J. 
Foote store of pleasant memory and peppermint sticks, its line of 
open doors through which came whiffs of coffee and spices, now 
closed, a grim and forbidding storehouse. Van Loan's was then 
the one and only headquarters for Santa Claus. Even the iron dog 
must feel his age, for in 1856 from the pages of the weekly he de- 
clares mournfully "I still live." The hospitable home of Philip V. V. 
Van Orden now stands along the Vosen Kill, its former garden a 
part of a park and playground made possible by the gift of Mr. 
and Mrs. James P. Philip in memory of Mrs. Philip's parents. Mr. 
and Mrs. Isaac Pruyn— an oasis and a blessing to the children of thp 
upper ward, a gift that would have delighted Philip Van Orden, 
who "loved and was beloved of little children." 

That dignified Presbyterian lady, clothed in white, gazing 
down through classic columns along the open pathway to the world 
below, has during nearly a century and a quarter seen the rise and 
fall of two railroads and a trolley line, the advent of the motor-bus. 
the passing of the ox-team and the near elimination of the horse: 
has seen Main street rise from hub-deep mud to present sanitary 
conditions and prosperity, its new banks and county buildings, and 
at her side still stands her venerable companion, the Court House, 
although "Grasshopper Bridge" over the gully on Court street, and 
the pretty shepherdess tending the sheep, are no more. The .iail of 
grim memories is now known as "The Heidelberg," and since Stephen 
Day built the first house on the hill many homes of wealth and 
beauty have sprung up. 



84 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE LANDING 

In 1861 war clouds gathered, enlistments were numerous and 
next year they poured in. In July, 1862, 300,000 men were called 
for and $50 bounty paid for volunteers. Then came the draft, and 
in 1864 another call for 300,000 men. Dr. Ingersoll and Dr. Brace 
examined applicants for military duty, the women made blankets and 
articles of clothing, gave money which they solicited or received from 
festivals, concerts and in other ways. It was called "an unnatural, 
unnecessary and inhuman war," and it left behind not a few prob- 
lems. Many rushed to arms with eagerness and haste; they re- 
turned to a country upside down as to money, politics and morals; 
to a burden of debt and the question of pensions. 

Always there will be problems. It required brains and skill to 
build a bridge of stone over the Catskill with only clumsy tools ■ 
the most primitive type to build it beautiful, symmetrical and lasting. 
No doubt there were those who said it was a foolish undertaking. 
Why not ford the creek as their fathers had done? Who shall say 
the problem was not as great as that of building a bridge across 
the Hudson to-day with modern machinery and skilled workmen. 

Our fathers had social problems. Did not the Dutchman fume 
and fuss because the Yankee had invaded the land and his sons 
and daughters would marry the foreigner, and did not the Yankee 
fuss also because his children would marry Dutchmen? Paternal 
authority did not always suffice in those days when youth was 
supposed to take a back seat. Did they not rebel against the elim- 
ination of distilleries, and were not the mountains in consequence 
filled with secret stills which one after another were ferreted out 
by the officers of the law, until finally something like temperance 
was established? There were always those who adhered to the old 
customs and manner of dress and would not change "even unto 
death." In later years there was just as much fuss over the drag- 
ging of long skirts through filth and dust as to-day over the short 
ones. 

Even Main street has been again and again a problem to the 
inhabitants of Tatskill village. The problem still comes up, but 
there can be no question of lack of advancement, from the pig wal- 
lowing in the mire and upsetting respectable church-goers in a 
puddle, and the cow-stable opening on the street, to the substantial 
footing and sanitary conditions of the present. Always there will 
be extremists, and man will continue to guard his "liberty" as he 
calls it, but in spite of the pessimist the world grows better in com- 
parison with its increasing numbers, and it is for us to add our mite 
of lives well lived, open-minded and loyal to our country and 
our God. 



IIMBOGHT 

'T'HE settlers of the Imboght were mostly Palatines who preferred 
*■ upland to lowland but journeyed faithfully through the forest 
to worship at the only church in that region excepting that of 
Kaatsban, which was also reached through a forest, for, when Dr. 
Brace used to drive along the King's Road, so dense were the woods 
that ''from the beginning of the Saugerties Road to West Camp he 
rode in unbroken shade." 

One of these early settlers was Jourya Overbaugh, who died in 
1739 and gave his lands to his "cousin Christian Overbaugh," who 
married Sara DuBois. He built a stone cottage about 174 5, with 
a chimney on the outside. The house became the Imboght House of 
.James P. Overbaugh. During the Revolution it was a place of 
muster for the minute men of the district, and a refuge for their 
families. At the Imboght was the Kykuit from which warnings of 
Indians abroad or danger in time of war were flashed to the sur- 
rounding country. Johan Peter Overbaugh is buried in a meadow 
on the east side of it, his tombstone, said to be the oldest in the 
town, has this inscription: "1734. Septem. 14. .J. P. O. B." 

In 1777 at the burning of Kingston the inhabitants of the 
Imboght were greatly alarmed and they drove their stock to the 
woods and packed their valuables for quick removal. From the top 
of the Kykuit they saw the burning of Livingston Manor. The 
Tories of the "Great Imboght" began to plan what should be done 
with their Whig neighbors' land — even their women were bitter 
enemies. Jeremy Overbaugh when he went to the house of a Tory 
to buy some beef was refused, the daughters saying, "No Whig de- 
serves to have anything to eat." When John Overbaugh searched 
this house for a noted Tory these same daughters concealed the 
Tory between two feather beds and carried him in that way to the 
barn on pretext of ridding the beds of bugs. John Overbaugh was a 
typica'l Dvitch yeoman — conservative, fond of the ways of his fathers, 
"of sound judgment and a firm believer in the tenets of his church." 

Temperance Loveridge, daughter of the pioneer of the Land- 
ing, married (1716) William Van Orden and they settled on a part 
of the Loveridge Patent at the Imboght. Their house was built 
against a hill, partly of logs and partly of stone. It had heavy 
oaken shutters and double doors. In front there was a fine view of 
the Hudson, the "canoe place" and Van Orden's Bay. Besides this 
canoe place there was one at the head of Burget's Creek and another 
at the first bend of DuBois Creek. Skiffs and batteaux were used 
by the Van Ordens, W'ynkoops and others to reach Catskill and other 
places along the Hudson, and to carry farm produce to the sloops. 
The rights of "canoe places" were strictly guarded. 

William Van Orden died in 1765 and was buried near his house. 
He was one of the elders of the old Catskill church and his sons be- 
came men of standing in the town. The inventory of his possessions 
after his wife's death shows the industry and thrift of the family of a 
yeoman of that day. After Van Orden died, to make satisfactory di- 
vision his children cast lots for the land between the Kaleberg and 
the Hudson. William's share lay along the Saugerties Road and a 



86 HIsrORIC CATSKILL— IMBOGHT 

lot known as "T. Kleine-hooi-landtje," or little hay field. Margaret's 
(Dumond) was also along the Saugerties Road, "afterward Longen- 
dyke's, and 25 acres' near Post's; Elizabeth (also Dumond) 118 
acres, John 100 acres, and Ignatius the homestead." William, who 
had married Sarah DuBois, built himself a house which "became his 
son Hezekiah's, later Mistress Angelica Overbaugh's." Hezekiah was 
spoken of as "a man of some estate and unblemished character; 
ardent Whig, member of the military company of the "Great Im- 
boght" and justice of the peace." His son Jacob, who studied law 
with Abraham Van Vechten of Albany, was a prominent lawyer of 
the Greene County Bar, and legal adviser of all Dutch farmers." 
Jacob was the father of the late William Van Orden, a prominent 
citizen who married Mary, daughter of Caleb and Keturah (Hill) 
Hopkins, and lived for many years on the Old King's Road, where 
his children William and Anna still make their home. 

John Van Orden, second son of William of the Imboght, was 
a faithful patriot, and during the Revolution, too old to fight, was 
chairman of the military committee. His son William fought at 
Stillwater and Saratoga, was taken ill with fever and on his way 
home died at the house of Teunis Van Vechten and was buried on 
the hill at that place. Benjamin, William's brother, was quarter- 
master of the New York Volunteers and in 17 97 had a store and 
home at Catskill where the Y. M. C. A. now stands. Peter, another 
brother, too young for war, acted as scout, and captain of the young 
men of the Imboght. In 1797 he "became a tavern-keeper on the 
Windham mountain when there was a tavern for every mile along 
the Susequehanna Turnpike, and eggs were 8c. a dozen and butter 
12c. and 15c. a pound." Ignatius, the third son of William, re- 
mained on the homestead and during the Revolution had a commis- 
sion in Anthony Van Bergen's regiment. He is said to have been 
"an honest dealer and one of the first and warmest supporters of 
patriotic principles and American Independence." Margaret Du- 
mond and Jan Baptiste Dumond built a house in 1761, afterward in 
possession of the Longendykes. It was a tavern during the Revolu- 
tion, and Dumond was several times under suspicion of disloyalty. 
In later years Jacob Ten Broeck Van Orden, great-grandson of 
Ignatius, who lived to be eighty-nine, is spoken of as "grand old 
man of the Imboght," born and died on the same farm after sixty- 
seven years of married life; his wife was Catherine Saxe. He had 
two sons, Henry S. and DeWitt, and one daughter. Mrs. Margaret 
Haas. Samuel Van Orden also died at the Imboght at the age of 
eighty-eight, a devout and loyal supporter of the church at Catskill. 
His children were William and Ten Broeck of Catskill, Chauncey of 
Chatham, Mrs. Lydia T. Person, Mrs. Jane Piero and Mrs. Harriet 
Pritchard of California. The late Mrs. James Badeau was his sister. 

In 1783 Wilhelm Dietrich (Dederick) owned Lot No. 5 of the 
Loveridge Patent, between the Kaaterskill and the King's Road. 
He was a son of a Palatine from Wurtemburgh, a weaver by trade,, 
lived at West Camp, had an ashery and a blacksmith shop. He gave 
each of his sons a farm, and one of them (Zacharias) became owner 



/ 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— IMBOGHT 87 

of the land at the Imboght. His house of stone was built \n 1749 
by Philip Spaan and stood one hundred years. Here afterward was 
built the house of Peter Z. Dederick. Not far from this house was the 
camp of the Mohawks, and it was near the watering trough on the 
Saugerties Road that a fierce battle between the Indians was fought. 

Abraham Person (Peers) lived between the Kaleberg and the 
Hudson where afterwards Jacob Person lived. Abraham's brother 
John, born at the Imboght, died in Roxbury in 1738. "He was uni- 
versally beloved, respected and esteemed by all his neighbors and 
acquaintances. He was attentive and diligent in his occupation, 
punctual in his engagernents, peaceable in society and charitable to 
the distressed." Abraham Person's grandson Abraham took what 
was afterward the Post farm, and Henry the "land which was suc- 
cessively Kittel's, DeWitt's and John Post's." 

The Lockerman Patent lay south of the Loveridges. Jacob 
Lockerman came from Holland and with his two brothers was among 
the first settlers in New Netherland. In 1664 he was a peace com- 
missioner between the Mohawks and the northern Indians, and 
bought the land (1686) at the Imboght which descended to his 
daughter Catherine, wife of Wessel Ten Broeck of Albany. One of 
his sons obtained a patent for his share in 1740. 

Evart Wynkoop came into possession in 1789 or 1791 of a farm 
in the Loveridge Patent where his son, Hezekiah Wynkoop. built a 
block-house, but Hezekiah removed to Kingston and another son 
(William) made it his home. One of William's daughters married 
a Schoonmaker who bought the homestead. In the meantime Heze- 
kiah, the brother of William, married Elizabeth Dederick, and his 
grandson, Mynderse Wynkoop, married Mary E. Schoonmaker and 
the homestead returned to the Wynkoops. Henry Wynkoop. father 
of Mynderse. was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas at Kingston 
and soldier of the War of 1812. The stone house of the Wynkoops 
was built in 1792. A great-uncle of Mynderse used sometimes to 
fome to the Dutch church at Catskill on skates "and surprise the 
people by marching up the aisle with his skates hanging on his 
arm." These skates, which might have belonged to a giant, so bi" 
were they, came from Holland. He was a good skater and in a 
straight-away race no one could catch up with him. 

In 1873 at Abram Post's occurred a daring robbery. The family 
were surprised at supper and firmly bound while the thieves rifled 
the house of money and jewelry and partook of a hearty supper. 
Some time after they had gone one of the family succeeded in freeing 
himself and gave the alarm, but no trace at that time could be found 
of the robbers. Later some of the property was recovered. Abram 
Post settled at the Imboght in 1800, and his son Charles was for 
several terms Supervisor, also Sheriff. 

Mrs. Isaac Snyder, who died in 1912, was a daughter of Freder- 
ick Martin and born in the stone house of the Martin homestead, 
now the property of the Seaboard Cement Company. 

In 1762 the Fieros. Trumpbours. Saxes and Burgers came into 
possession of land at the Imboght. and in 17S:', had houses there. 



]MONTGO]VIEPlYA^ILLIi: 

\ MILE and a halt from Leeds, at the junction of a little stream 
*^ called the "Valje kilitje" with the Catskill, was the site very 
early in the history of Greene county of a grist and saw-mill, and 
later (1809) Ezekiel Benton had a grist-mill, clothier's mill and dis- 
tillery. The following year it was leased by Montgomery Stevens 
and John Wolcott, and the little settlement near by was called 
Montgomery ville. In 1792 Ashley Gilbert, merchant, lived there, his 
wife Lodema Day of Madison. The old stone schoolhouse no doubt 
belonged to this little hamlet. The house of Mrs. Gammer was a 
hotel, another house stood opposite the Charles Sherman house; in 
the '50s the George Philip place (afterward Wetmore's), and one 
back of George Puffer's, besides the Abram Philip house (Lindsey's), 




SCHOOL HOr.SE AT M0NTG03IERYVILLE (XEAR LEEDS) 



the Van Hoesen house (burned down), Wolcott's and another one 
opposite. The little hamlet had many adversities. In 1810 the 
grist and clothier's mills and the distillery were destroyed by fire 
and between 3,000 and 4,000 bushels of wheat, rye and corn besides 
a quantity of flour, corn meal and three pipes of gin were lost. The 
distillery belonged to Stevens, and the mills had been leased to John 
Wolcott for ten years. Before this Wolcott had a leather-store at 
Madison. Four years after the fire a sand-bank caved in, precipitat- 
ing the little son of John Wolcott into the creek. No bruises could 
be discovered on his body but he died a half-hour later. 

During the "big shower" of 1819 Wolcott's mills were inundat- 
ed, much flour lost and the distillery and plaster-mill swept away. 
At this time the house of one June was surrounded with water, and 
Mr. June, thinking his little daughter was in the house, in an at- 
tempt to rescue her was drowned. The family had abandoned the 
house and were saved. On the following day the grist-mill, having 
been undermined, fell to the ground. 



fflSTORIC CATSKILL— MONTGOMERYVILLE 89 

The place was known for many years as Wolcottville and Wol- 
cott's Mills, and remained in the family until a few years ago. 

Beyond Wolcott's is what is known as ''Whiskey Hill," and 
here was the distillery and tavern. The hill received its name when 
a barrel of whiskey rolled away and the contents ran down the hill. 

Dr. Samuel Dodge, who had two children, Clarence and Alice, 
at one time lived at Salisbury Manor. 

South Cairo lies next along the Catskill, and once Bijah Ran- 
som lived there — -known by his spotted oxen — his house called the 
"Do-doop-in." Across the way was the Carman house (still stand- 
ing), an inn or tavern where the early stage-coach changed horses. 
To the west and also along the Catskill was the home of Cornelius 
Van Deusen, brother of Claudius, who with the Blackmars had a 
part in the history of the Leeds church. Blackmar was (1827) one 
of the superintendents of the poor, and with Orrin Day and James 
Sanford asked for gratuitous service of clergy for the Poor House 
on Sundays, there having been objections to paying a minister for 
this purpose. The farm of James Elting was at South Cairo. He 
was one of the good elders of the church at Madison. His son 
Francis, born there, remained on the farm until 1875, when 
removed to Dutchess county. He was an elder of influence in the 
Reformed Church at Leeds, honorable and upright, and the same 
can be said of his brother James, who became owner of part of the 
Salisbury estate near Leeds, and built a house on the hill over- 
looking the flats. 

Sandy Plains, on the opposite bank of the Catskill and a part 
of the Salisbury Patent, was the home of John Salisbury and hi" 
descendants. Frederick Salisbury was a well-known citizen and 
pillar of the Methodist Church at that place, which claims to have 
been the first of its kind in the town. Henry Weeks and John Pine 
were among the first class leaders. The first building has been 
abandoned and another built near the South Cairo bridge. Joh^^ 
Rouse and Joseph Bevier were deacons in the stone church at Leeds. 

James Barker, "Patroon" and a "prominent member of the 
English Bar," with twenty-three families settled at Woodstock be- 
fore the Revolution. His wife was a lineal descendant of the 
Tudors. 

Of the history of the villages in the upper valley of the Catskill 
there is not space to tell. A part of the "Great Western Wilderness," 
it was only here and there before the Revolution that some brave 
pioneer and his family made a home, but after the war settlements 
grew rapidly along the "Great Road" and soon the stage-coach 
rattled along the way. Cairo, once Shingle-Kill, then Canton, beau- 
tiful in its setting of everlasting hills with bald-headed, rugged- 
faced Round Top guarding its more beautiful sisters, on whose side 
the first log cabin in that region was built, the scene of the murder 
of the Stropes by the Indians, and the capture of Frederick Scher- 
merhorn. 

Acra, near which Thurlow Weed was born, almost overshadowed 
by the mountains. Durham, the home of Hon. Lyman Tremain, like 



i 

90 HISTORIC CATSKILL— MONTGOMERYVILLE 

Cairo on a branch of the Catskill, is inseparable from the Sus- 
quehanna Turnpike and the stage-coach. The creek at Durham 
village was first Sawmill Creek, then Prink, and now Durham, its 
source Cold Spring on Mount Pisgah. Freehold, where Major Au- 
gustine Provost, a peaceable Loyalist, settled on 7,000 acres in 1794 
and married a daughter of another Loyalist, Jacob Bogardus of 
Catskill Landing. Provost was a distinguished officer of the French 
War and through a long life maintained an unsullied character. 
Oak Hill claims the first settlement in Durham town, that of Lucas 
DeWitt, the Planks and Egbertson (1772) — Hollanders all. De- 
Witt's wife was a daughter of Abraham Person of the Imboght, and 
he was noted for his portable grist-mill which he hid in a hollow 
log during the Revolution, and, returning in 1781, taken from its 
hiding place, was again set up and doing service until a mill was 
built nearby on the Catskill. Franklinton and Preston Hollow lie 
wedged between hills and mountains along the Catskill. from the 
summits of which one might easily roll down to the main street. 
Before the motor-car became the accepted means of travel one could 
not make their acquaintance without hours spent on dusty roads 
or perhaps hub-deep mud; now they are near neighbors where one 
can dine or sup at pleasure, always providing no untoward tack or 
accident hinders the locomotion of Henry. Catskill fifty years ago 
was a five-hour journey from Durham, stopping at Cairo for rest 
or lunch, and in winter preparations for it were hot soapstones, 
buffalo robes, furs, shawls and blankets. Not a few of the older 
men wore heavy gray woolen shawls. Now it is just an after-supper 
spin down to the movies, and back again to Durham before midnight. 
Imagine if you can the spirit of the red man. coming back from 
the "happy hunting ground" in this twentieth century. His old 
home would no longer be a fit dwelling place for a roving Indian and 
he would withdraw quickly and stealthily as of old from a place so 
unsuited to his taste. The smooth highway, with its ill-smellin-^ 
swift-footed, nameless beasts of many shapes and colors outstripping 
his fastest pony; the clattering machine birds overhead; the won- 
derful wigwams of the white man intruding even in the highest 
solitude of the hills on his old hunting ground; and if he should find 
some spot untouched by desecrating hand and draw his bow on 
game which in the flesh he would have despised, gone would be the 
freedom of the hills, for a paleface would spring up, demand his 
{•redentials and attempt to put his spirit behind prisoi bars. 



k:isk^to]nj: 



T^HE early settlers of the "beautiful vale of Kiskatom" were wor- 
*■ shippers at old Catskill. coming through the "Five Mile Woods" 
a long distance on horseback. Tlie name Kiskatominakauke is found 
in a deed of 1708, a purchase from the Indians by one William Beek- 
man, who in 1717 had 370 acres and later 2,000 more. It is de- 
scribed as "lying under the Blew Hills * * * and below where 
the Kiskatametie Kill watereth into said Kaaterskill." Excepting a 
portion of the Catskill Patent, it included the whole valley of Kis- 
katom. This was no doubt the beginning of Kiskatom, and Becker, 
Rau, Jung, Schmid and others lived there in 1727. Probably dur- 
ing the Revokition the valley was almost deserted for safer quar- 




KISIv.XrOM KKIOKMKn (1)1 1(11) ( HI Ktll 



ters, although we know W.\ nkoop had a mill on the Kiskatom 
Creek, and the wife of young St rope with her children, when the 
house was burned and the elder Stropes murdered by Indians in 
1781 at Round Top, made her way through the forest to Timmer- 
man's. There is standing to-day just beyond the cross-roads a house 
which has been in the Tinmierman family for many years. It still 
has the heavy double doors and a well-sweep. The road formerly 
ran in front of the house, but this did not please the great-grand- 
mother of the present owners, and a strip of ground was exchanged 
for it which brings the barn instead of the house facing the road tc 
Round Top. 



92 fflSTORIC CATSKILL— KISKATOM 

In 1796 John Schepmouse died at "Kiskadominatia," a farmer, 
and captain in Abeel's regiment, and before 1804 John Freleigh 
owned 3 00 acres at "Kisltataminisia," and Henry More was a very 
early settler, building the house on what is now the George W. 
Winans farm and succeeded by his son. In 1796 John More was one 
of the Commissioners of Common Schools. Peter Scram was owner 
of the Saxe farm afterward in the possession of the Saxes for 118 
years. One Frederick Saxe was known as the "bear hunter," a 
leader by nature, and up to "middle life a leader in wickedness 
without fear of God and man." He became suddenly converted on 
hearing the church bells as he was fishing in the Hudson, and put 
the same energy into the Christian life as he had into that which 
was evil. He wasted no time but announced a prayer meeting in 
the schoolhouse, and although no one came but himself he went on 
with the service, and when asked who was there replied, "God was 
there and I was there." Next Sunday evening the place was crowded 
and out of it grew the church of Kiskatom. He joined the Leeds 
church, became deacon and elder and his sincerity was never ques- 
tioned. His son John was also a mighty hunter known as "Bear 
John." He was a member of the church and a good citizen. John F. 
was father of the late Frederick Saxe, who married Betsey Linzey. 
They were the parents of Washington Saxe and Mrs. Herbert Lasher. 

The Overbaughs were among the early settlers and have left an 
impress for good on the community. The names of Jeremiah and 
William (Billy) Overbaugh stand for consistent living, piety and 
work for the church. 

In 1832, one hundred years after the first church at Old Cats- 
kill was built, began the building of one at Kiskatom. Seymour 
Collins was the builder, and Peter Pelham laid the foundation. The 
building committee was composed of R. M. Lawrence, Isaac G. Du- 
Bois, Joseph Saxe, John C. Myer and Frederick Saxe. A Sabbath 
School in charge of Jonas Snyder was held in the Remsen school- 
house and continued to be held there for many years. In 1842 the 
Kiskatom Church called its own minister, Rev. William Lyall. 

Before the church was built, Dr. Wyckoff preached in private 
houses, one of which was Aunt Betsey Sax's, grandmother of Mrs. 
Peter Van Bramer. He also preached in the Bethel schoolhouse and 
gave it its name. Rev. Benjamin Hoff, aided by Rev. Dodge, held 
a great revival in 1842. Men left their ploughs in the furrow to 
attend the services, and forty or more were added to the church. 
The last resident pastor was the late Rev. Sydney 0. Lawsing. 



CLOVES OF THE CATSKILLS 

nPHE "Cloves" of the Catskill range are the gateways leading to 
* the maze of mountain peaks behind nature's bulwarks, stretch- 
ing in what seems an unbroken line through the valley of the Hud- 
son. The three principal cloves — Kaaterskill, Plattekill, and Stony 
Clove — run almost at right angles through the mountains with a 
common meeting place at the top. 

In the time of the Indian their footpaths followed the streams 
of these cloves through wonderful forest fastnesses, through fern 
and brake and tangled laurel, over mossy rocks, along precipices and 
beneath giant beeches, oaks and hemlocks to the "Western Wilder- 
ness." The early settler when necessity demanded followed these 
same trails on horseback, with ever-ready gun, peering cautiously 
around for fear of panther or wolves, and in time of war for skulking 
Indians or Tories. 

The Kaaterskill because of its new roadway has preeminence 
to-day. A pioneer geologist in reference to it writes of "numerous 
copperheads and rattlesnakes, eagles soaring overhead, of trees in- 
terlacing over the stream where five-pound trout were caught; of 
perpendicular ledges crowned by enormous rocks, over which wave 
the pine with its funeral verdure, often projecting over the cliff like 
nodding plumes." 

As settlers increased the trail became a rough track for the 
cart and ox-team which toiled slowly but surely along the way. 
Then came the era of the horse, and the road was rudely but better 
built, and in 1823 became a turnpike with a toll-gate at its foot. At 
one time there were two tanneries along the way, a village of 200 
people sprang up, keeping in memory the names of Palen, Kiersted 
and Quackenboss. Here homes were built, orchards planted, and 
the destruction of the hemlocks began. The ruins of this village can 
still be seen, a few gnarled and knotted apple trees remaining. 

With the coming of the autonrobile a new and improved high- 
way from the county seat to the mountain towns became necessary. 
It took seven years to build, cost $400,000 and is due to Hon. J. L. 
Patrie's exertions in its behalf. As you approach the mountains on 
your way from Catskill you see here and there on South Mountain 
the chimney of some bungalow above the trees, but the mountain 
meadows with the isolated farmhouse where the pioneer and his 
family lived their lives of toil are hidden from sight, most of them 
now the summer home of the rest-seeker. The house of Italian archi- 
tecture occupied by Dr. White and family is noticeable against the 
background of towering cliff on the third ledge. Before you is 
Palenville, named in honor of Jonathan Palen, its long main street 
open to the breezes of the Clove, with the Rowena Memorial School 
and Gloria Dei Protestant Episcopal Church, both of stone, its most 
striking features. It is also the home of Mrs. Hiland Hill, who owns 
much of the land on South Mountain. 

The mountains seem to spread apart for your convenience. South 
Mountain on the one side and High Peak on the other. You cross 
the Kaaterskill and begin your climb — a climb not comparable with 
other days. Some cars take it without a groan or change of gear. 



94 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE CLOVES 

others hesitate, muttering a little, but succeed withgut much effort. 
Only the road is changed. Indian Rock still stands out in all its 
barren dignity; Overlook is there, although the dwelling or hotel 
which proved a financial failure has long since disappeared. You 
turn a corner and Profile Rock is before you. It has lost none of its 
beauty of dripping moss and fern-covered cliff, and the Old Man's 
grotesque features still guard the pass. A little beyond is Fawn's 
Leap. 

From this point the new road begins its ascent, soon leaving 
the old far below. The old road followed the stream for some dis- 
tance through a valley, while the new one avoids its overflow and 
hugs the mountainside, preferring to advance upward gradually and 
not climb heavenward in one long steady pull. 

The old road was full of thrills and dangers: the thrills are 
still there — and more — but danger and steep grades have been re- 
duced to a minimum. To see the road at its best one must go both 
up and down it in an open car, but to walk without haste in the 
early morning, to linger here and there along the way, to absorb 
the stillness and the mystery, the heights above and the depths 
below; to leisurely watch the waters on their rocky, boulder-strewn 
way to the valley — that were a pleasure with which no automobile 
ride can compare. 

Seven times since the road has been in process of construction 
has the writer passed up and down it, six times on foot and once by 
motor power, and in all seasons of the year, in sunshine and storm, 
has climbed over impossible land-slides, scrambled down rocky and 
thorny ways when road construction came to an unexpected end. 
and with the "Mother of Catskill" has stuck in the stickiest kind of 
red clay, said ''Mother" emerging with terra cotta limbs but cheer- 
ful countenance, determined not to turn back — a picture long to be 
remembered. The writer was saved from a similar fate by a wobbly 
rail which threatened a life-sized clay plaster cast, but whatever 
the season or condition the clove never failed to charm with its 
beauty. 

One never-to-be-forgotten day, roused from our beds by the 
honking of the taxi — the faithless alarm clock having failed us — five 
minutes later in darkness and without our breakfast or lunch we 
were on our way to the station. At Kingston a cup of lukewarm 
coffee and some cereal rewarded us for early hours. When we 
reached Phoenicia the mountain-tops were white with frost and 
filmy clouds hung low along their sides. Snow began to fall softly 
in the valley, the evergreens seized the flakes as they fell for - 
coverlet, the austere look of winter forests was changed and soft- 
ened, every rock and twig became transformed. What mattered col ' 
coffee or lunch — rather the lack of it? The snow was not fallin" 
thick enough to obscure the mountains, but the flakes whirleri ' 
eddies down the valleys as the engine with much huffing and puffin 
poked its nose up Stony Clove and brought us to Haines Falls. The 
houses at Twilight Park were snow-mantled and hanging on the 
edge of a misty abyss. There were few cars stirring that day. 



HISTORIC CATSKILI^THE CLOVES 95 

and their drivers had doubts of our sanity, but we were just happy 
tramps on the broad highway with only chocolate and cold water 
for refreshment. 

Haines Falls and the Kaaterskill, their voices hushed and 
solemn beneath Jack Frost's covering, rushed on their way as if in 
haste to reach the valley before they should be conquered and held 
fast in the grip of the enemy. Tier upon tier of icicles hung from 
the rocks, some ten feet in length. Profile Rock was bewhiskered 
and bedecked with ice formations. At the foot of the clove a half- 
dozen workmen were seated on a log around a blazing fire before the 
open fireplace of a tall chimney, all that was left intact of the re- 
cently-burned artist's home — in spite of adverse circumstances dis- 
pensing hospitality. • 

There is or was another road on the northern side of the clove 
which was built by home talent as it were, after engineers had pro- 
nounced the task hopeless (H. E. Dibble, contractor) leading to the 
Hotel Kaaterskill, or, as it was then known, the Harding House. It 
is still worth following although passable only as a path. From it 
can be had grand vistas of the valley, glimpses of the new road, 
and a sweeping view of the forest-covered sides of High Peak. There 
are immense old hemlocks and beeches on every side, and precipices 
from which one draws back with a shudder. The mountains are 
more impressive from this road, chiefly because of its wildness and 
the forest stillness, and but for traces of man in bridges and tele- 
phone poles might well belong to past centuries. 

From the end of the new road the distance is short to Kaater- 
skill Falls and the lakes of which the creek is the outlet, and which 
at the falls leaps 150 feet to the ledge below, where with wide- 
spread skirts it takes another dizzy plunge, forming the/ falls, in- 
separable from thoughts of Cooper and his "Leather Stocking Tales," 
in which he has so faithfully painted a word picture of the little 
stream and its surroundings. A succession of falls and cascades, 
joined by the West Branch, it dashes down the cleft between the 
mountains, steals around boulders, drops into deep pools and is 
sometimes lost sight of from the road, but at last, after divorcing 
the "Village of Falling Waters" from its lesser half, wanders aim- 
lessly up and down the valley in doubling curves, twice intruding 
upon Ulster county. Twenty-five miles from its source it empties 
into the Catskill — "as the crow flies it is less than ten." 

Once there was a boulder of about 50 tons, measuring 175 feet, 
resting insecurely at the top of the Kaaterskill Falls. A party of 
men from Cairo and Catskill decided on a new way to celebrate 
Independence Day. On .July 3, 1820, they made their way to the 
spot, camped for the night and next day succeeded in pushing the 
boulder over the falls. "The effect was awful and sublime, the 
crash tremendous, exceeding the loudest thunder— the tVemulous 
motion of the earth and the long murmuring echo rolling from point 
to point through the ravine gave to the scene an indescribable degree 
of grandeur. The rock was shattered in a thousand pieces. Toasts 
were then drunk and vollies of musketry fired." 



96 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE CLOVES 

Here at the falls is the Laurel House, inseparable from the 
memory of the hospitable Schutts and their captive bears. Its be- 
ginning was "a stand set up by Willard Cowen in 1824." 

The Mountain House, a landmark for miles up and down the 
valley, still stands on the spot known as Pine Orchard. In 1819 a 
party was taken there on horseback by Erastus Beach. They spent 
the night camping on the flat rocks with "all creation" below them. 
Soon a shack was built for the accomodation of travelers, and in 
1823 "temporary buildings" were advertised as "taken by William 
Van Bergen, whose accommodations are good and the house well 
furnished." Erastus Beach ran a stage three times a week to meet 
the boat at Catskill. A company was formed and a road built from 
Colonel Lawrence's to the hot^ the next year, and a grand Independ- 
ence Day celebration was held at Pine Orchard, the small building 
enlarged to "14 feet length" with four stories, and the interior 
"fitted up in superior style." 

Pine Orchard was the favorite camping grovmd of Indians, and 
the legend still lingers of Lotowana the daughter of the chief Shan- 
daken, whom Norseredden, "a cruel and dissipated Egyptian," sought 
to win although she was betrothed to a young chief of the Mohawks. 
Norseredden, enraged at the failure of his suit and vowing revenge, 
caused the death of the beautiful Indian maiden by the gift of a 
casket which contained a poisoned dart. He was pursued and burned 
at the stake by the warriors of the old chief, and his ashes left up 
the rocks to be scattered by the winds of heaven. 

The Mountain House was the pioneer boarding house of that 
region. The road, no longer a necessity, over which travelers ir 
days gone by reached the Mountain House by stage-coach, is dan- 
gerous for any but skillful and experienced drivers. The Rip Va" 
Winkle house is gone and Rip's chair falleth into decay, but Sleepy 
Hollow and the famous Rip belong to South Mountain alone, and 
not, as one might suppose by various signs to be met with from New 
York to Albany, to any other part of the Catskills.* William Freese, 
one of those who drove the four-horse stage up the movintain, is 
still living at Catskill. 

From the mountain-top one has a choice of innumerable auto- 
mobile trips over good roads, and can revel in the scenic beauty no- 
where lacking in the maze of mountain peaks and smaller ranges, 
or he can go to East Windham, the one-time home of Barney Butts, 
noted hunter and trapper of bears, and from its one-sided street on 
Windham Mountain enjoy a view of miles and miles of valley of 
which one never tires, and take the new road down to South Durham, 
Cairo and Catskill — around the block as it were. 

West Saugerties, in summer an attractive little village, lies 
at the foot of the Plattekill Clove where the road goes suddenly 
upward, Steep, and none too wide. Part way up is a resting place 
with seats for weary travelers, called Doyle's Park. There is a 

* Rip Van Winkle house was built by William Comfort of Cats- 
kill and planned by Ira Saxe. 



HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE CLOVES 



97 



horseshoe curve as you ascend, where you look down into the court- 
yard of nature's castle, its surrounding walls majestic mountain- 
sides, the road a balcony from which you look down upon it. There 
a grass-grown road winds among the trees beneath which you are 
sure there are dancing fairies, and to the north from the top of a 
cliff flashes a silvery waterfall quickly lost behind the green, then 
reappearing some distance below, telling of the unseen Plattekill 
racing and tumbling through the valley. The wind whistles and 
whirls the tree-tops, all but the spire-topped spruces, which seem to 
stand invincible. A passing cloud on this first day of September 
spits a mouthful of snowflakes and they float lazily down to the 
courtyard to tell the fairies that winter is coming. 

From the summit of the Plattekill Clove along a little path 
above "Devil's Kitchen," or farther on where another leads to the 
edge of the abyss, there is a view surpassing anything the other 
cloves have to offer, but the scenic beauty of its roadway is not in 
general so inspiring or diversified as that of the Kaaterskill. Per- 
haps if one knew the Plattekill well, was intimate with the stream 
which drops 2, .500 feet to the valley but which the present road has 




scorned to follow, one might not draw so strong comparisons, for it 
has grandeur peculiar to itself. 

From Platte Clove village at the summit the road is good and 
runs past fine farms and through beautiful mountain scenery to 
Tannersville. You pass the "House in the Woods" and "Siefferths," 
and if you are fortunate enough, as we were, to discover farther on 
"Mabel the Pathfinder," you may be courteously shown the short 
cut to Tannersville and Haines Falls, behind Round Top and past 
Clum Hill, by the house of Greek architecture which Welles Bos- 
worth, well-known architect, has built on a spot the view from 
which no pen of ordinary ability would dare try to picture. From 
there a narrow road, rough and steep, leads to Tannersville. 



98 HISTORIC CATSKILL— THE CLOVES 

Stony Clove is unlike either of the others. Its sides draw 
closely together and as you descend it a mountain seems to block 
the way. You are too near to form a fair conception of these lofty 
elevations which surround you — one must tarry awhile for that. 
The stream flows softly at your side, and trout hide in its pools. 
It was once described as the "brook that never laughs, nor ripples, 
nor gurgles, but glides with muffled feet over cushioned rocks, 
silent always, slipping through perpetual twilight." If the railroad 
had not intruded in the narrow pass you would not be surprised if 
bear or panther should dispute the way, but as it is the long-drawn- 
out whistle of the engine, like the call of some monster beast, has a 
weird sound as it echoes and re-echoes from cliff to cliff. Stony 
Clove is one to be loved and lived with throughout long summer days, 
and from it also you can reach Hunter and the heart of the moun- 
tains. 

The Catskills lack the sublime aloofness of the Rockies, their 
snow-covered peaks reaching heavenward; the restless alluring 
waterways of the Adirondacks; the wonderful coloring of the Blue 
Ridge — their distinctive feature is not in these things. What they 
lack in vastness they make up in mystery, the mystery of dark 
forests and caverns, of unexpected grassy meadows, innumerable 
paths and roads that lead nowhere, hidden springs and cascades, for 
the Catskills specialize in cascades. The spots devoid of trees are 
not flat granite rocks like the Adirondacks — the rocks of the Cats- 
kills have a tendency toward the artistic; mosses, ferns, fallen trees, 
acres of tangled laurel fill up the gaps, and the white birch springs 
up quickly and adds beauty and ghostliness. 




